Path Dependence and Path Creation in Energy Systems – A Multi-Level Perspective on Technological, Business and Policy Innovations (EnPath)
Start year: 2009
End year: 2012
Contact at SYKE: Per Mickwitz
Project member(s): Per Mickwitz (SYKE), Paula Kivimaa (SYKE), Raimo Lovio (Aalto), Eeva-Lotta Apajalahti (Aalto), Jenny Rinkinen (Aalto), Eva Heiskanen (Aalto/SYKE), Paul Upham (SYKE), Kerstin Åstrand (SYKE).
Funding: The Academy of Finland
Partners: The Aalto University School of Economics Background and Objectives
Energy systems are largely characterised by path dependence. Decisions taken in the past limit the options available today. Fuel choices, conversion technologies and distribution networks involve physical, financial, governance and knowledge investments that are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Path dependence concerns not only technology but also ideas and practices in the energy field.
By contrast, path creation – a newer concept – has been described as involving distributed and active agency, where new opportunities are created by a collective through mindful deviation. While past choices affect present and future options, they do not determine them. Innovations are crucial for change and can enable the creation of new paths.
The energy system is linked to many other systems such as the mobility, the innovation and the industrial systems that use and produce energy. These systems are affected by diverse policies, e.g. related to energy, innovation, environment and competition. Horizontal coordination of policies and vertical implementation of key objectives are central challenges.
Our project focuses on the energy system in Finland. Examining the current system and its interlinkages with other systems is essential for identifying the barriers and opportunities for innovations to break the system lock-ins. While energy systems have national characteristics, there are also similarities across countries (e.g. the aim for security of supply and increasingly liberalised markets). Thus, our study allows for more general conclusions regarding path dependence and path creation in energy systems.
The four interlinked objectives of EnPath are:
A. to identify factors and actors enabling and hindering energy innovations in a multi-level (local, national, international) and multi-sector context;
B. to understand the role of both incremental and disruptive processes in energy innovation and system change;
C. to determine the impact of integrating multiple strategic goals on the emergence and diffusion of sustainable energy innovations;
D. as a synthesis of objectives A-C, to discover the possibilities for path creation in strongly path dependent energy systems. Focus and Research Methods
We will construct an analytical framework of innovation mechanisms, which identifies four sources of change – new market entrants, old incumbent companies, civic activity and policy interventions – and their potential interactions. We will also examine how the various innovation mechanisms have operated to transform or maintain the dominant energy system. Our analysis has implications for energy entrepreneurs aiming to create new paths as well as for energy policies trying to enhance sustainable energy transitions. Both entrepreneurs and policymakers need to understand the self-reinforcing mechanisms that support the dominant path and to support the creation of new paths.
The results will be based on six overarching case studies, focusing on different subsystems and giving different perspectives on energy system change in Finland. The case studies and their synthesis are based on novel combinations of research methods including policy analysis and evaluation, economics and innovation research.
The six cases are:
I. Changing boundary conditions in energy governance
II. Integration of different policy aims into policies affecting the diffusion of bioenergy
III. Intermediary organizations as promoters of energy innovations
IV. Emerging energy-motivated strategies in the Finnish pulp and paper industry
V. Energy innovations in housing and building
VI. Adoption and diffusion of new small-scale renewable energy technologies Publications and Conference Papers
Academic and popular publications will be made on the basis of the case studies and the synthesis study. In addition, enhanced dialogue between researchers, industrial actors and policymakers will be promoted based on the interactive research methods, seminars and articles to a popular audience. The findings will be utilised in several university courses.
2012
Mickwitz, P., 2012. The Road to Rio 20: An Opportunity Missed (?), Forum for Development Studies, 39 (1): 75-81.
2011
Journal of Cleaner Production Special Issue (three Enpath articles):
Mickwitz P, Hildén M, Seppälä J, Melanen M (2011). Sustainability through system transformation: lessons from Finnish efforts, Journal of Cleaner Production 19(6): 1779-1787.
Kivimaa P., Mickwitz P (2011). Public policy as a part of transforming energy systems: framing bioenergy in Finnish energy policy, Journal of Cleaner Production 19(6): 1812-1821.
Heiskanen E, Lovio R, Jalas M (2011). Path creation for sustainable consumption: Promoting alternative heating systems in Finland. Journal of Cleaner Production, 19(6): 1892-1900.
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Kivimaa P, Lovio R. (2011). Transformation and policy protection in energy regimes: Four cases of wood-based bioenergy, 4S Conference, Session on "Strategies of Transition towards Green, Post Carbon Societies II", 2-5 November 2011, Cleveland, Ohio.
Lovio, R., Mickwitz, P. & Heiskanen, E. (2011).”Path dependence, path creation and creative destruction in the evolution of energy systems”. in Wüstenhagen R. and R. Wuebker (eds.) The Handbook of Research on Energy Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, p. 274-301.
Lovio R, Rinkinen J, Temmes A.(2011). Can biofuels and electric vehicles contribute to green growth in Finland? In R. Lovio. et al. (eds) Towards green growth? The position of Finland in environmental technology. Tekes Review 282/2011, p. 37-59.
Mickwitz P, Upham P (2011). The politics and policy dynamics of socio-technical systems transformation: cases from the EU, Finland and the UK, Invited paper for the Yale Workshop "Intervening to Constrain our Future Selves: Strategic Policy Interventions to address the ‘Super Wicked’ Problem of Climate Change", 5-6 May 2011, 37 p.
Rinkinen J (2011). The role of media discourse in path creation: The case of energy use of Finnish personal transport system. 2nd International Conference on Sustainability Transitions Diversity, plurality and change, 13-15, Lund, Sweden.
2010
Heiskanen, E. & Lovio, R. (2010). User-producer interaction in housing energy innovations: Energy innovations a communication challenge Journal of Industrial Ecology 14(1) 91-102.
Kivimaa, P., Lovio, R., Mickwitz P. (2010). The role of system interlinkages for path dependence and path creation in energy systems. Presented at the conference Energy Transitions in an Interdependent World, 25 - 26 February 2010, University of Sussex, Brighton.
Kivimaa, P., Lovio, R., Mickwitz P. (2010). The influence of system interlinkages on path dependence and path creation in energy systems (2nd version). Proceedings of the Workshop on New Path Creation, 5-7 September 2010, Oxford.
Rinkinen, J (2010). SY 21/2010 Liikenne mediassa. Kilpailevat tulevaisuudet sähköautosta autottomuuteen [The future of traffic in the media: Competing visions from electric cars to a car free future], Finnish Environment, 21/2010, Helsinki: The Finnish Environment Institute.
Rinkinen, J. (2010). Sähköautolla median rakentamalle valtatielle: Diskurssianalyysi median sähköautokeskustelusta [Driving electric cars on the highway built by the media: A discourse analysis of the media debate about electric cars]. Liikenne/Kaupunki 1/2010. s. 30-43.
2009
Heiskanen, E., Kivisaari, S., Lovio, R. & Mickwitz, P. (2009). Designed to travel? : Transition management encounters environmental and innovation policy histories in Finland. Policy Sciences 42(4): 409-427, DOI10.1007/s11077-009-9094-2.
Reudelhuber M. (2009).United States Climate Change Policy: Assessing avenues for greenhouse gas reductions under the Obama Administration. Reports of the Finnish Environment Institute 25/2009, Helsinki: Finnish Environment Institute 87 p. Presentations by members of the EnPath-project
Go to the separate web-page:
Presentations by members of the EnPath-project Meetings and Events Organised by EnPath
- The 2nd EnPath seminar on Change and Stability in Energy Systems, 9.12.2011
Research Team
Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE):
Research Director, Professor Per Mickwitz
Senior Researcher Paula Kivimaa
Visiting Professor Paul Upham
Aalto University, School of Economics:
Professor Raimo Lovio
Research Professor Eva Heiskanen
PhD Candidate Eeva-Lotta Apajalahti
Researcher Jenny Rinkinen
Advisory Group
The project has an advisory group that will give the project feedback and guidance during the work. The members of the group are leading international and national experts on diverse aspects of energy systems.
The members of the advisory group are:
- Lena Neij, Professor, IIIEE, Lund University
- Rob Raven, Assistant Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology
- Rolf Wüstenhagen, Professor, University of St. Gallen
- Magnus Cederlöf, Counsellor, Environmental Protection Department/Climate Change, Ministry of the Environment
- Peter Lund, Professor, Aalto University School of Science and Technology
- Jouko Kinnunen, Managing Director, Motiva Oy
- Pentti Puhakka, Senior Engineer, Energy Department, Ministry of employment and the economy
Further Information
Further information can be obtained from Research Professor Per Mickwitz, Finnish Environment Institute, firstname.lastname@ymparisto.fi and other project members.
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