The role of the technological niche in the low carbon development

As the landscape pressure became increasingly challenging as translated by the adoption of the carbon budget system of the 2008 Act, the transition priority began to shift from profit- oriented toward environmental safety and energy security. Higher commitments to ULEV began to emerge along various policy efforts directed toward their deployment through the office for low emission vehicles and the technology strategy board’s low carbon vehicles innovation platform. Investment in BEV started from the mid-1990s, but has received more attention and accelerated from 2005 until 2012, reaching about 0.012% of total cars on UK roads (Figure 5.2). This development necessitated the expansion of suitable facilities needed to sustain their functionality, namely batteries and charging points (Next Greencar, 2014b; Element Energy, 2013). Some technology alignment also occurred within these fairly distributed technologies. As slow charging points were considered time-consuming due to the growing number of electric cars, fast and rapid charging points emerged across the UK. Also,

the need for high performance batteries triggered the importance of Lithium-ion batteries, which have relatively long service duration (Carbon Descent, 2009). However, this development did not disrupt the regime as such vehicles have been confined to certain niches such as small size vehicle and short distance travel niches (Contestabile, Offer, & North, 2012). Social network of existing actors remain in control of their infrastructure (SMMT, 2013; FreeIndex, 2014).

5.7 Conclusion

This chapter uses the analytical framework of the multi-level and the multi-phase perspectives to explore the low carbon transition pathways for the UK road transport system. The work draws from the impact made by the national (UK) and regional (EU) low carbon policy instruments on the UK road sector. The result shows that the transformation pathway, which is at the take-off phase on a large scale, is the only fully active pathway. The transformation is mainly characterised by the adoption of biofuel blends, hybrid electric vehicles, as well as niche technologies such as battery electric vehicles. For the emergence of an ideal low carbon road system in the UK, it is shown that the transformation pathway is insufficient and the likely pathway sequence to full decarbonisation will be transformation- substitution-de-alignment/re-alignment. However, the dynamics that can favour a smooth process of this sequence will demand a range of active niche technologies and strong government intervention. Thus, key stakeholders such as government, industry, markets and research institutes have a crucial role to play for the success of a fully decarbonised road transport system.

CHAPTER 6

TRANSITION PATHWAYS IN THE UK ELECTRICITY GENERATION SECTOR

6.1 Introduction

Transition to sustainability is a dynamic process which involves the interplay of various forces among multiple actors within multiple domains and at different levels (Loorbach & Rotmans, 2006; Rotmans et al., 2001). The fact that transitions do not come about easily implies that the existing regime is characterised by path-dependency and lock-in (Safarzynska & van den Bergh, 2010; Unruh, 2000). Technical components are embedded and intertwined in a seamless web with infrastructure, institutions and actor skills and expectations (Bolton & Foxon, 2010; Kemp et al., 1998). A socio-technical regime is established by such systemic mechanisms which are responsible for the resistance of the regime to change or to transition to a new alternative. Therefore, for a transition to occur, a (transition) force of certain magnitude needs to act onto the regime to weaken the link holding the socio-technical system (i.e. regime resistance Rr) to cause destabilisation and create opportunities for the adoption of new practices and ultimately change.

Going by the multi-level perspective (MLP) framework (Geels & Schot, 2007), these forces or influences come from both the landscape and niche levels. The landscape level exerts a disruptive pressure PL on the regime which develops from an external event and/or side effect of the regime (Darnhofer, Sutherland, & Pinto-Correia, 2015; Geels 2011; Patwardhan et al., 2012; A. Smith et al., 2005). Similarly, alternatives at the niche level exert a seductive influence on the regime (technological innovation system) in terms of its relative techno- economic and sustainability performance Pn (Carlsson & Stankiewicz, 1991;Geels, 2011; A. Smith, Voß, & Grin, 2010). Hence, the regime is acted upon by a pushing force on one hand and attractive force on the other. Both forces are important in transitions, however, a

transition may occur due to a sole action of an attractive force from niche (technology innovation system) or a combination of PL and Pn influences. This implies that a transition cannot occur in the complete absence of Pn, no matter how much PL might develop. Therefore from simple proportional reasoning, it may be said that transition momentum Mt is directly proportional to the influences of landscape pressure PL and niche performance Pn but inversely proportional to the square of regime (transition) resistance Rr, written mathematically as; 2 2 r L n r L n t R P P k R P P M   (6.1)

The value of Mt determines the status and phase of a transition. The four phases of a transition according to Rotmans et al. (2001) are the pre-development phase, take-off phase, acceleration or breakthrough phase and the stabilisation phase. The values of three quantities PL, Pn and Rr represent forces and resistance and hence, Mt is a dimensionless measure of the momentum of a transition. Therefore, the regime cracks at Mt = 1k which may also stand for the take-off phase of a transition. The expression PL : Pn instigates different regime

configurations, types and settings of regime policies (Hall, 1993) and determines the type of transition pathway. The four transition pathways according to Geels and Schot (2007) are the transformation, reconfiguration, substitution and de-alignment/re-alignment pathways which result to different regime structuration. When expressed in terms of medium (m), high (h) and extreme (e), the following explanation may be deduced; 1) mPL : mPn represent the

transformation pathway, 2) hPL : mPn represent the reconfiguration pathway, 3) hPL : hPn

represent the substitution pathway, 4) ePL : mPn represent the de-alignment/re-alignment