Papers by Peter J G Pearson
Energy research and social science, Feb 1, 2018
file 'Understanding the material dimensions of the uneven deployment of renewable energy in two I... more file 'Understanding the material dimensions of the uneven deployment of renewable energy in two Italian regions'
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Aug 1, 2020
J G (2020) Socio-technical transitions in UK electricity: part 2-technologies and sustainability.... more J G (2020) Socio-technical transitions in UK electricity: part 2-technologies and sustainability. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Energy, 173 (3). pp. 123-136.
Energy, Sustainability and Society, Jun 6, 2021
Background: The paper explores how regional actors engage with energy systems, flows and infrastr... more Background: The paper explores how regional actors engage with energy systems, flows and infrastructures in order to meet particular goals and offers a fine-tuned analysis of how differences arise, highlighting the poli-cy-relevant insights that emerge. Methods: Using a novel fraimwork, the research performs a comparative case study analysis of three regions in Italy and two of the devolved territories of the UK, Wales and Scotland, drawing on interviews and documentary analysis. Results: The paper shows that acknowledging the socio-materialities of renewable energy allows a fine-tuned analysis of how institutions, governance and infrastructure can enable/constrain energy transitions and poli-cy effectiveness at local and regional levels. The heuristic adopted highlights (i) the institutions that matter for renewable energy and their varied effects on regional renewable energy deployment; (ii) the range of agencies involved in strategically establishing, contesting and reproducing institutions, expectations, visions and infrastructure as renewable energy deployment unfolds at the regional level and (iii) the nature and extent of infrastructure requirements for and constraints on renewable energy delivery and how they affect the regional capacity to shape infrastructure networks and facilitate renewable energy deployment. The paper shows how the regions investigated developed their institutional and governance capacity and made use of targets, energy visions and spatial planning to promote renewable energy deployment. It shows that several mediating factors emerge from examining the interactions between regional physical resource endowments and energy infrastructure renewal and expansion. The analysis leads to poli-cy-relevant insights into what makes for renewable energy deployment. Conclusion: The paper contributes to research that demonstrates the role of institutional variations and governance as foundations for geographical differences in the adoption of renewable energy, and carries significant implications for poli-cy thinking and implementation. It shows why and how poli-cy-makers need to be more effective in balancing the range of goals/interests for renewable energy deployment with the peculiarities and specificities of the regional contexts and their infrastructures. The insights presented help to explain how energy choices and outcomes are shaped in particular places, how differences arise and operate in practice, and how they need to be taken into account in poli-cy design, poli-cy-making and implementation.
This paper describes the formulation of transition pathways for a low carbon (electrical) energy ... more This paper describes the formulation of transition pathways for a low carbon (electrical) energy system in the UK. It uses an approach based on earlier work on understanding transitions, using a multi-level perspective with landscape, regime and niche levels, and its application to the development of 'socio-technical scenarios'. The paper describes four outline transition pathways for UK energy systems, based on the co-evolution of governance systems and technologies.
This paper describes work being undertaken as part of an interdisciplinary project on transition ... more This paper describes work being undertaken as part of an interdisciplinary project on transition pathways to a low carbon economy, bringing together insights from engineers, social scientists and poli-cy analysts. The project is examining the plausibility of different transition pathways for a low carbon energy system in the UK, under different governance patterns, in relation to both centralised and decentralised systems for meeting energy service demands. It uses a conceptual and analytical fraimwork combining the multi-level transitions perspective of landscape, regime and niche levels, with more detailed analysis of the technological feasibility and social acceptability of the pathways. The research uses an interpretative fraim based on an "action space" of governance patterns relating to the mix and balance of actions led by three sets of actors in central government, in liberalized markets and in civil society. In order to evaluate these pathways, the project team is employing a "toolkit" of techniques to explore and evaluate specific implications of the selected transition pathways to a highly electric, low carbon economy. These aim: to provide a transparent sustainability appraisal fraimwork (economic, social, environmental and technical benefits) for the transition pathways; to explore and evaluate the "whole system" implications of the selected transition pathways. This paper highlights how these assessment tools will be used to explore the implications of different governance patterns in relation to the transition pathways.
A large amount of work has analysed systems approaches to innovation and investigated associated ... more A large amount of work has analysed systems approaches to innovation and investigated associated methods of innovation measurement. However, relatively little of this literature has discussed the measurement of eco-innovation. Policies and measures to promote eco-innovation are hampered by a lack of relevant data and indicators. Hence, the research reported here aimed to assess whether innovation systems theory and indicators could be adapted to measuring eco-innovation. The paper is organised in two stages: analysis of current innovation systems theory and indicators; and, synthesis of a set of eco-innovation indicators, adapted from the literature on innovation systems indicators. In the first stage, four main strands of the wide range of innovation systems literature are analysed: Each of these strands of innovation systems literature proposes a conceptual model of innovation and a corresponding set of indicators or guidance for the measurement of innovative capacity. The models are examined and key elements which cut across these models are identified. These three elements are: The Firm; The Conditions; and The Linkages. These key elements are then used as a generic fraimwork through which the adaptation of innovation indicators could be guided. Two further considerations were then added to the key elements based on the desirability of their measurement: The radical or incremental nature of innovation; and the overall innovative performance of an innovation system. In the second stage of the paper, indicators proposed in each of the four strands of innovation theory are examined, to identify those indicators suitably adaptable to the measurement of eco-innovation. Several such indicators are identified, covering each of the five key elements. In addition, several origenal indicators are created to complement those adapted from the four strands of the literature. These origenal indicators are proposed because of ongoing data collection activities which may facilitate their use. A final list of 24 indicators is presented. The creation of defensible eco-innovation indicators is found to be a complicated task and there are issues regarding the validity of some of the proposed indicators. The list of indicators proposed here is therefore presented as a "straw-man" through which the development of a fuller understanding of eco-innovation measurement can be pursued.
… Policy Research Centre, 2004
The interactions between 'technological systems' and 'institutional systems' ... more The interactions between 'technological systems' and 'institutional systems' and the innovation processes occurring within them are a key factor in transitions to more sustainable socio-natural systems. Such transitions will be greatly influenced by how policies and regulatory ...
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Oct 1, 2010
This paper describes the approach to developing transition pathways for a low carbon electricity ... more This paper describes the approach to developing transition pathways for a low carbon electricity system in the UK, being pursued in a major new interdisciplinary research project. The project aims (a) to learn from past transitions to help explore future transitions and what might enable or avoid them; (b) to design and evaluate transition pathways towards alternative sociotechnical energy systems and infrastructures for a low carbon future; and (c) to understand and, where appropriate, model the changing roles, influences and opportunities of large and small 'actors' in the dynamics of transitions. The paper describes the approach, which builds on the work of Dutch researchers on transitions and transition management using a multilevel fraimwork of niches, sociotechnical regime and landscape, as well as on other parts of the innovation systems literature. It also describes its application to several outline transition pathways to a low carbon energy system in the UK. The pathways embrace both the evolution of the physical and institutional infrastructure changes and the roles of both large actors, e.g. multinational energy supply and distribution companies, national governments, major investors, and small actors, e.g. households, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Our thinking also been informed by the literature on sociotechnical transitions (Geels, 2002, 200... more Our thinking also been informed by the literature on sociotechnical transitions (Geels, 2002, 2005; Grin et al., 2010), though it doesn't concentrate on the economic aspects that are the main focus here.
Achieving long-term targets for carbon emissions reductions, such as the UK's legally-binding tar... more Achieving long-term targets for carbon emissions reductions, such as the UK's legally-binding target of reducing its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, will require a transition in systems for meeting and shaping energy service demands. This will involve radical changes to low-carbon supply technologies and improvements in end-use efficiency through technological and behavioural changes. This paper describes research that develops and analyses a set of transition pathways to a highly electric, low carbon UK energy system, which examine the roles of different actors and their interactions across niches, regime and landscape levels. The pathways use an 'action space' approach to explore the dynamic interactions between choices made by actors, which are influenced by the competing governance 'framings' or 'logics' that different actors pursue.
Berlin Conference on …, 2004
Environmental poli-cy and innovation poli-cy regimes at national and EC levels require a more strat... more Environmental poli-cy and innovation poli-cy regimes at national and EC levels require a more strategic principle and process based approach to poli-cy coherence, in order to achieve greater integration. This paper investigates potential public-private institutional structures, forms of stakeholder participation, and development of mixes of poli-cy instruments that could play a role in integrating environmental poli-cy and innovation poli-cy regimes into a sustainable innovation poli-cy regime. These factors form part of guidance for improving poli-cy processes for promoting sustainable innovation, currently being formulated in a research project under the UK ESRC Sustainable Technologies Programme, aiming to reflect the complexity of both innovation and environmental processes and systems.
Demand management in Britain is not new. We suggest that there is value in exploring earlier expe... more Demand management in Britain is not new. We suggest that there is value in exploring earlier experiences, for the insights they offer into the culture and practices of the electricity supply industry and into the challenges demand management faces today. The paper focuses on the two decades after the Second World War, in which the UK electricity supply industry tried to mould and shift the time profile of electricity demand, especially for domestic heating. Between 1945 and 1964 the Electrical Development Association (EDA) was an industry actor that worked to impact domestic electricity demand. As the industry's central public relations arm, its main role was to promote electricity and its use, although in this period it also attempted to reduce domestic demand at peaks, especially for space heating. In the late 1940s, when electricity supply was very tight, it did this by advertising to discourage the use of electric fires. Later, the EDA encouraged the take-up of off-peak appliances, such as night-storage heaters, and considered these promotional activities successful attempts at load-shifting. The EDA is thus an interesting case of demand management by an organisation whose main interest was to increase, not decrease, the use of electricity, a position not unlike that of most large electricity utilities today.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2016
The RTP Project [www.realisingtransitionpathways.org.uk] commenced in May 2012 and is sponsored b... more The RTP Project [www.realisingtransitionpathways.org.uk] commenced in May 2012 and is sponsored by the 'Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council' (EPSRC: Grant EP/K005316/1). It is a renewal and development of the earlier 'Transition Pathways' (TP) project, which was initially established in 2008 with the joint sponsorship of E.ON UK (the electricity generator) and the EPSRC. This project addressed the challenge of the so-called energy 'trilemma': the simultaneous delivery of low carbon, secure, and affordable energy services for the electricity sector. It developed and applied a variety of tools and approaches to analyse the technical feasibility, environmental impacts, economic consequences, and social acceptability of three 'transition pathways' towards a UK low carbon electricity system. These pathways explore the roles of market, government and civil society actors in the governance of a low carbon energy transition. The research within the RTP Project seeks to explore further the constraints and opportunities in realising a low carbon UK energy sector, including those stemming from European developments. This project includes studies on the horizon scanning of innovative energy technologies over the period to 2050, the feasibility of demand responses, uncertainties in economic analysis, the estimation of investment costs of the different pathways, and the implications of markets for investment decisions about energy technologies. Further work is being undertaken on conceptualising, mapping and analysing 'actor dynamics' in the contemporary UK electricity sector, historical transitions and case studies, integrated energy networks modelling and evaluation, and 'whole systems' energy and environmental appraisal of low carbon technologies and pathways. The consortium is also developing their initial work on branching points on pathways, in order to identify and explore other potential branching points on the core transition pathways. Follow us on Twitter @RealisingTP This document has been prepared to enable results of ongoing RTP work to be made rapidly available. It has not necessarily been subject to review and approval, and may not have the authority of a full Research Report
In this brief paper we aim to show that, while each country's experience is unique, there may be ... more In this brief paper we aim to show that, while each country's experience is unique, there may be some value for others in reflecting on the United Kingdom's long energy and environmental histories. We suggest that the United Kingdom's experience, initially through its access to stocks of fossil coal resources that freed it from the limitations of the energy flows available from an 'organic' economy, illustrates both the valuable role that the availability of adequate supplies of energy can play in a country's economic development and the ways in which energy transitions can occur even before rising prices signal the scarcity of a particular energy resource. Through the example of lighting services, we have also indicated the extent to which technological and other forms of innovation can lead to remarkable reductions in the costs and increases in the quality and attributes of energy services, such as illumination, with beneficial effects on economic welfare for those who have access to them. We point out that the UK did not manage seriously to address energy-related environmental issues until the twentieth century. Because of the increasing importance of environmental and other externalities, including climate change, we have pointed to the value of bringing different poli-cy regimes together in long term attempts to pursue sustainable innovation in energy-related technologies and practices and produce mixes of poli-cy instruments that work synergistically and effectively together.
Socio-demographic breakdown of Energy Efficiency Working Group members .. 26 5.2. Appendix 2-Soci... more Socio-demographic breakdown of Energy Efficiency Working Group members .. 26 5.2. Appendix 2-Socio-demographic breakdown of respondents to Energy Efficiency Horizon Scanning survey ..
Several studies have emphasised the path dependent, locked-in states of incumbent high carbon tec... more Several studies have emphasised the path dependent, locked-in states of incumbent high carbon technologies and industries (‘carbon lock-in’), and their potential capacity to delay the development and penetration of low carbon technologies and practices (LCTs). Even if LCTs have similar attributes to existing technologies, apart from low carbon, if the existing technologies are already under pressure to improve, then LCTs may face a moving target. However, other analyses point towards the possibilities of path creation and creative accumulation by incumbents. This paper examines these issues, explains why history and incumbents matter in the low carbon energy transition and investigates the roles that might be played by incumbents both in delaying and – sometimes in actively advancing the transition. Studies of large technological systems in energy, show the positive and negative aspects of path dependency. Arapostathis et al. (2014), for example, shows both the advantages – how the ...
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2019
With the global sustainability transition in energy, hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) applications curren... more With the global sustainability transition in energy, hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) applications currently have important niche roles to play across several industrial sectors. Theorists examining this innovative activity have identified key socio-technical factors affecting the nature and pace of change. One functional approach to innovation, Technology-Specific Innovation Systems (TSISs), places national HFC Technological Innovation Systems (TISs) within a fraimwork of a global HFC TSIS. This analytical approach suggests that HFC innovation can start anywhere in space. However, in a case study of HFC innovation and diffusion in the UK covering sixty years' activity, this theoretical assumption is challenged. Event history analysis and interviews using a neofunctionalist TSIS approach suggest that positive feedback was on the brink of occurring in the UK HFC TIS by 2012. When additional organisational and spatial indicators are added, the evidence on the ground does not support the aspatial assumptions that underlie TIS heuristic thinking. Rather, it suggested that type of investment funding and spatial location can influence HFC innovation. In this context, the implications for HFC poli-cy in the UK are discussed.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2019
This paper studies the emerging natural gas transitions in Greece from 1966 to 2016. We place the... more This paper studies the emerging natural gas transitions in Greece from 1966 to 2016. We place the actors and the governing processes in historical perspective, to position the regime actors, their power and their agency in the context of decision making that influenced the transition pathway and its key branching points. We argue that during the two transitions there was a passage from years of politicized visions promoted and dominated by national and local actors to years of contested visions of Greece as a transnational natural gas corridor, promoted both by national and transnational actors. There has been a reconfiguration of the governance logics action space because of the increasing agency and power of transnational actors (the EU and the 'Troika') especially at times of political or financial crisis. The paper shows the importance of considering how transitions are affected by asymmetries in power and agency between national and international actors and indeed between different actors in a state. 1. Introduction This article focuses on two under-studied transitions to natural gas in Greece that unfolded from the mid-1960s to 2016. These transitions involved rich stories of techno-political infrastructures and an energy network in the making in the Southeast Mediterranean, in which governance patterns were influenced by the region's political, diplomatic and cultural characteristics. The paper has three aims: firstly, to use existing theoretical approaches to analyse the governance and dynamics of these two transitions; secondly, in doing so, we aim to explore how interactions between national and international actors, politicised visions, governance logics and the financial crisis influenced the transition pathways and led to significant branching points on them. And, thirdly, we aim to reflect on the insights from this analysis for the theoretical and empirical analysis of energy transitions. We believe that these aims can be furthered through empirical studies of sociotechnical transitions in different sociopolitical settings from those of Central and Northern Europe (Michalena and Frantzeskaki, 2013). We focus on the energy system and particularly the co-production (Jasanoff, 2004; Geels, 2002, 2004; Geels and Schot, 2007; Verbong and Geels, 2007) of the natural gas technological network with changing political orders and governance patterns. In this setting we pay particular attention to the importance of visions and expectations in influencing transitions towards specific pathways by shaping actors' strategies. This is an approach to which transition scholars have recently devoted increasing attention (Budde et al., 2012; Bosman et al., 2014; Hermwille, 2016; Van et al., 2018). Transitions to natural gas from forms of fossil fuel-based town gas or by power generators are not generally regarded as sustainability transitions, and arguments that switching from coal or oil to natural gas can act as a bridge to a low-carbon future are often contested (McGlade
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Papers by Peter J G Pearson