IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v52y2013icp699-705.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Not locked-in? The overlooked impact of new gas-fired generation investment on long-term decarbonisation in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Chignell, Simon
  • Gross, Robert J.K.

Abstract

This paper contrasts the potential increase in gas-fired power generation in the UK in the period to 2020 with the ambitious decarbonisation goals set forth for this sector. An increase in Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) capacity, in particular, only represents a threat to long-term decarbonisation if some ‘lock-in’ exists. It is against this background, and in the interest of challenging the perception of no significant lock-in to gas-fired generation, that this paper identifies investment lock-in as phenomenon of relevance to policy-makers. The paper determines both direct and indirect ways in which investment in significant new CCGT capacity could negatively impact on the likelihood of meeting decarbonisation goals through ‘locking-in’ the existing technological system. It also identifies that the technical lifetime, and not just the capital repayment period, of CCGT assets is relevant in understanding the strength of the lock-in. Finally, a regulatory structure that aligns with the long-term targets in place is identified as providing a clear signal for investors and asset owners that may reduce the risk of ‘investment lock-in’.

Suggested Citation

  • Chignell, Simon & Gross, Robert J.K., 2013. "Not locked-in? The overlooked impact of new gas-fired generation investment on long-term decarbonisation in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 699-705.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:52:y:2013:i:c:p:699-705
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.10.033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512008919
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.10.033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    2. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    3. Roques, F.A. & Nuttall, W.J. & Newbery, D.M., 2006. "Using Probabilistic Analysis to Value Power Generation Investments Under Uncertainty," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0650, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    5. Unruh, Gregory C., 2000. "Understanding carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 817-830, October.
    6. Brian Mccann & Timothy Folta, 2009. "Sunk costs, uncertainly and market exit : a real options perspective," Post-Print hal-02312513, HAL.
    7. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1998. "Irreversible investment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-37, March.
    8. Matthias Göcke, 2002. "Various Concepts of Hysteresis Applied in Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 167-188, April.
    9. Jonathan O'Brien & Timothy Folta, 2009. "Sunk costs, uncertainty and market exit: A real options perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 18(5), pages 807-833, October.
    10. Gross, Robert & Blyth, William & Heptonstall, Philip, 2010. "Risks, revenues and investment in electricity generation: Why policy needs to look beyond costs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 796-804, July.
    11. Avinash Dixit, 1992. "Investment and Hysteresis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 107-132, Winter.
    12. Pena-Torres, Julio & Pearson, Peter J. G., 2000. "Carbon abatement and new investment in liberalised electricity markets: a nuclear revival in the UK?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 115-135, February.
    13. X. Henry Wang & Bill Z. Yang, 2001. "Fixed and Sunk Costs Revisited," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 178-185, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hickey, Conor & Deane, Paul & McInerney, Celine & Ó Gallachóir, Brian, 2019. "Is there a future for the gas network in a low carbon energy system?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 480-493.
    2. Sithole, H. & Cockerill, T.T. & Hughes, K.J. & Ingham, D.B. & Ma, L. & Porter, R.T.J. & Pourkashanian, M., 2016. "Developing an optimal electricity generation mix for the UK 2050 future," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 363-373.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Uwe Cantner & Simone Vannuccini, 2017. "Innovation and lock-in," Chapters, in: Harald Bathelt & Patrick Cohendet & Sebastian Henn & Laurent Simon (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Innovation and Knowledge Creation, chapter 11, pages 165-181, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Sharon Belenzon & Victor Manuel Bennett & Andrea Patacconi, 2019. "Flexible Production and Entry: Institutional, Technological, and Organizational Determinants," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(3), pages 193-216, September.
    3. Foxon, Timothy J. & Pearson, Peter J.G. & Arapostathis, Stathis & Carlsson-Hyslop, Anna & Thornton, Judith, 2013. "Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 146-158.
    4. Sandri, Serena & Schade, Christian & Mußhoff, Oliver & Odening, Martin, 2010. "Holding on for too long? An experimental study on inertia in entrepreneurs' and non-entrepreneurs' disinvestment choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 30-44, October.
    5. Hötte, Kerstin, 2020. "How to accelerate green technology diffusion? Directed technological change in the presence of coevolving absorptive capacity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    6. Sea‐Jin Chang & Yoichi Matsumoto, 2022. "Dynamic resource redeployment in global semiconductor firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 237-265, February.
    7. Jeremy Webb & Max Briggs & Clevo Wilson, 2018. "Breaking automotive modal lock-in: a choice modelling study of Jakarta commuters," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(1), pages 47-68, January.
    8. Schmidt, Tobias S. & Battke, Benedikt & Grosspietsch, David & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Do deployment policies pick technologies by (not) picking applications?—A simulation of investment decisions in technologies with multiple applications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1965-1983.
    9. Gänser-Stickler, Gertraud M. & Schulz, Matthias & Schwens, Christian, 2022. "Sitting on the fence - Untangling the role of uncertainty in entrepreneurship and paid employment for hybrid entry," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2).
    10. Albert Faber & Koen Frenken, 2008. "Models in evolutionary economics and environmental policy: Towards an evolutionary environmental economics," Innovation Studies Utrecht (ISU) working paper series 08-15, Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, revised Apr 2008.
    11. Nicholas Howarth, 2011. "Clean Energy Technology and the Role of Non-Carbon Price-Based Policy: An Evolutionary Economics Perspective," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 871-891, October.
    12. Nathalie Lazaric & Kevin Maréchal, 2010. "Overcoming inertia: insights from evolutionary economics into improved energy and climate policy," Post-Print hal-00452205, HAL.
    13. Zeppini, Paolo, 2015. "A discrete choice model of transitions to sustainable technologies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 187-203.
    14. Leo Wangler, 2010. "Renewables and Innovation - Empirical Assessment and Theoretical Considerations," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-002, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    15. Rebekah Brown & Richard Ashley & Megan Farrelly, 2011. "Political and Professional Agency Entrapment: An Agenda for Urban Water Research," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(15), pages 4037-4050, December.
    16. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Lessmann, Kai, 2012. "Learning or lock-in: Optimal technology policies to support mitigation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-23.
    17. Konnola, Totti & Unruh, Gregory C. & Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier, 2006. "Prospective voluntary agreements for escaping techno-institutional lock-in," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 239-252, May.
    18. Sangcheol Song & Jeoung Yul Lee, 2017. "Relationship with Headquarters and Divestments of Foreign Subsidiaries: The Hysteresis Perspective," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 545-570, August.
    19. Foxon, Timothy J., 2011. "A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2258-2267.
    20. Kelly Levin & Benjamin Cashore & Steven Bernstein & Graeme Auld, 2012. "Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(2), pages 123-152, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lock-in; CCGT; Decarbonisation;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:52:y:2013:i:c:p:699-705. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.