Technological learning in offshore wind energy: Different roles of the government
Introduction
Wind energy is a renewable energy source and therefore can contribute to a more sustainable energy supply. A problem associated with traditional onshore wind energy is lack of area for the production of clean electricity. In densely populated countries, the visual impact and sound of turbines hinders the society's accepting of a larger scale implementation of onshore wind energy (Redlinger et al., 2001). Harvesting wind energy offshore can be a solution to this problem and can bring us a step closer towards a sustainable electricity supply. From a global perspective, especially in the densely populated countries around the North Sea, the offshore wind resource in shallow waters is enormous. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark together have enough technical potential to accommodate 114 GW of offshore wind energy (CA-OWEE, 2001).
The main barriers to the successful implementation of offshore wind energy are its currently high costs (Verrips et al., 2005). The benefits of an offshore wind project do not always outweigh the costs yet. However, as Junginger (2005) points out, technological learning in the recent past has improved the economics of offshore projects significantly, and it is likely to continue doing so in the future. This makes technological learning an interesting phenomena for society and policy makers, as it could change the outlook for offshore wind energy as a contribution to a sustainable electricity supply.
There is already significant knowledge about technological learning from other studies. Experience curve theory shows how the costs of technology generally decrease with its implementation (BCG, 1968). At the same time, discontinuities—e.g. because of radical innovations or unforeseen circumstances—can seriously disturb a ride down the experience curve (IEA, 2000) and make learning trajectories unpredictable (Kash and Rycroft, 2002). In a number of industries these discontinuities have been explained by finding out in detail how technological learning takes place. In other words, the ‘black box’ of technological learning has been opened by describing which actors learn, about which subjects they learn and how they do so. For onshore wind energy, several studies have attempted to realize this, for instance, Kamp (2002), Klaassen et al. (2005) and Agnolucci (2007).
Offshore wind energy is rather different from onshore wind energy. The accessibility of the installations is far more difficult, the environment is much more harmful due to higher wind speeds, waves and, for instance, salty conditions, the farm size is generally larger, as is the maximum size of the turbines, and the market size is currently still smaller than the onshore market size. Although we have quite some knowledge about how learning takes place in onshore wind energy, for offshore wind energy we are uncertain about how learning processes take place precisely. Scientific data are limited. For instance, Andersen and Drejer (2005) provide a brief insight into how learning takes place in offshore wind energy, focussing mainly on user–supplier relations. In order to explain cost reductions in offshore wind energy, we need to have more information on technological learning also in the industry of offshore wind energy.
The objective of this study is to open the black box of technological learning in offshore wind energy further, to provide insights for policy makers how to stimulate technological learning more effectively and efficiently. This study will answer two main questions. The first question is how technological learning takes place in offshore wind energy. The second question is how policies can foster technological learning. After this introductory section, Section 2 will discuss relevant theories. This results in a case study method in Section 3, proposing a case study of the Danish and British history. Section 4 presents the results from these cases and also discusses future trends. Section 5 describes the conclusions and discussion. Finally, Section 6 provides recommendations.
Section snippets
Theory
Innovation and learning are typically activities that take place in systems (Lundvall, 1992). Systems of innovation consist of actors/agents, the relations between them and institutions (Kern, 2000). Actors can be persons as well as organizations. Relations enable interaction between the actors. Institutions are sets of ‘common habits, routines, established practices, rules, or laws that regulate the relations and interactions between individuals and groups’ (Edquist and Johnson, 1997). One can
Method
To answer our research questions, we will take a case study approach. The cases of Denmark and the UK have been selected, for a number of reasons. First of all, these countries represent the vast majority of all worldwide realized offshore wind projects. Second, Denmark has been the frontrunner of offshore wind energy, and a large share of the worldwide offshore wind energy industry is located in Denmark. The UK holds the promise to develop into a big market in the future, but hardly has an
Results
This section consists of three sub-sections. We will start with describing the performance of the TSIS's in Denmark and the UK in Section 4.1. Next, we deal with policies and learning in Denmark and the UK in 4.2 Policies and learning in Denmark, 4.3 Policies and learning in the UK, respectively. Finally, based on our observations, we will design an outlook in Section 4.4. This will provide challenges for policies and learning in the future.
Conclusion and discussion
In this section, we will return to the research questions. The first question is how technological learning takes place in offshore wind energy. Basically, our observations in Denmark and the UK show that both TSIS's consist of mainly self-organizing entities. Turbine manufacturers, project operators, component suppliers and knowledge institutes have succeeded mainly independently in developing technology towards its current performance. The most important ways of learning were learning by
Recommendations and outlook
Based on our findings, we can formulate an advice to policy makers, taking into account the remarks in the previous discussion. The first lesson policy makers may take on board from this study is to establish stable and long-term policy regimes in order to stimulate technological learning. This conclusion is in line with the major conclusion of Negro (2007) resulting from her research on the development of a biomass energy TSIS. Both the Danish and British regimes have been relatively
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for funding the study and providing guidance. In particular, we would like to thank Klaas-Jan Koops and Imar Doornbos for their input. Next, we would like to thank Shell WindEnergy for offering an internship placement in the business of offshore wind energy to the first author. Besides, we would like to thank all respondents to the interviews, especially Theo de Lange and Jos Beurskens (ECN), Per Dannemand Andersen (Risø) and Gijs van
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