IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v52y2013icp10-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transition pathways for a UK low carbon electricity future

Author

Listed:
  • Foxon, Timothy J.

Abstract

Achieving long-term targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, such as the UK's legally-binding target of reducing its emissions by 80% by 2050, will require a transition in systems for meeting and shaping energy service demands, involving radical substitution to low-carbon supply technologies and improvements in end-use energy efficiency. This paper describes the development and high-level analysis of a set of transition pathways to a UK low carbon electricity system, explaining key features of the core pathways developed and the distinctiveness and value of the approach. The pathways use an ‘action space’ concept to explore the dynamic interactions between choices made by actors, which are influenced by the competing governance ‘framings’ or ‘logics’ that different actors pursue. The paper sets out three core transition pathways – Market Rules, Central Co-ordination and Thousand Flowers, in which market, government and civil society logics respectively dominate. It summarises the key technological and institutional changes in these pathways, and the roles of actors in bringing these about. This leads to an identification of the key risks to the realisation of each of the pathways, and of the challenges for individuals, businesses, social movements and policy-makers in taking action to bring them about and sustain them.

Suggested Citation

  • Foxon, Timothy J., 2013. "Transition pathways for a UK low carbon electricity future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 10-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:52:y:2013:i:c:p:10-24
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.04.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512002868
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.04.001?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. David M. Newbery, 2012. "Reforming Competitive Electricity Markets to Meet Environmental Targets," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    2. Kowalski, Katharina & Stagl, Sigrid & Madlener, Reinhard & Omann, Ines, 2009. "Sustainable energy futures: Methodological challenges in combining scenarios and participatory multi-criteria analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(3), pages 1063-1074, September.
    3. Michael Nye & Lorraine Whitmarsh & Timothy Foxon, 2010. "Sociopsychological Perspectives on the Active Roles of Domestic Actors in Transition to a Lower Carbon Electricity Economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(3), pages 697-714, March.
    4. Hargreaves, Tom & Nye, Michael & Burgess, Jacquelin, 2010. "Making energy visible: A qualitative field study of how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6111-6119, October.
    5. Smith, Adrian & Voß, Jan-Peter & Grin, John, 2010. "Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 435-448, May.
    6. Geels, Frank W., 2002. "Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1257-1274, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Foxon, T.J. & Pearson, P.J.G., 2007. "Towards improved policy processes for promoting innovation in renewable electricity technologies in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1539-1550, March.
    9. Hughes, Nick & Strachan, Neil, 2010. "Methodological review of UK and international low carbon scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6056-6065, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bolton, Ronan & Foxon, Timothy J., 2015. "Infrastructure transformation as a socio-technical process — Implications for the governance of energy distribution networks in the UK," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PB), pages 538-550.
    2. Hassan Qudrat-Ullah & Mark McCarthy Akrofi & Aymen Kayal, 2020. "Analyzing Actors’ Engagement in Sustainable Energy Planning at the Local Level in Ghana: An Empirical Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, April.
    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. Chang, Rui-Dong & Zuo, Jian & Zhao, Zhen-Yu & Zillante, George & Gan, Xiao-Long & Soebarto, Veronica, 2017. "Evolving theories of sustainability and firms: History, future directions and implications for renewable energy research," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 48-56.
    5. Grant-Muller, Susan & Usher, Mark, 2014. "Intelligent Transport Systems: The propensity for environmental and economic benefits," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 149-166.
    6. Mura, Matteo & Longo, Mariolina & Toschi, Laura & Zanni, Sara & Visani, Franco & Bianconcini, Silvia, 2021. "The role of geographical scales in sustainability transitions: An empirical investigation of the European industrial context," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    7. Taylor, Peter G. & Bolton, Ronan & Stone, Dave & Upham, Paul, 2013. "Developing pathways for energy storage in the UK using a coevolutionary framework," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 230-243.
    8. Uyarra, Elvira & Shapira, Philip & Harding, Alan, 2016. "Low carbon innovation and enterprise growth in the UK: Challenges of a place-blind policy mix," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 264-272.
    9. Batinge, Benjamin & Musango, Josephine Kaviti & Brent, Alan C., 2019. "Sustainable energy transition framework for unmet electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1090-1099.
    10. Bradshaw, Amanda & de Martino Jannuzzi, Gilberto, 2019. "Governing energy transitions and regional economic development: Evidence from three Brazilian states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-11.
    11. Zhu, Bing & Nguyen, Mai & Sarm Siri, Nang & Malik, Ashish, 2022. "Towards a transformative model of circular economy for SMEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 545-555.
    12. Jordi Molas-Gallart & Alejandra Boni & Sandro Giachi & Johan Schot, 2021. "A formative approach to the evaluation of Transformative Innovation Policies [The Need for Reflexive Evaluation Approaches in Development Cooperation]," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 431-442.
    13. Catia Milena Lopes & Annibal José Scavarda & Mauricio Nunes Macedo de Carvalho & André Luis Korzenowski, 2018. "The Business Model and Innovation Analyses: The Sustainable Transition Obstacles and Drivers for the Hospital Supply Chains," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    14. Rachel Greer & Timo Wirth & Derk Loorbach, 2023. "The Circular Decision-Making Tree: an Operational Framework," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 693-718, June.
    15. Jain, Sanjay, 2020. "Fumbling to the future? Socio-technical regime change in the recorded music industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    16. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.
    17. Rosenbloom, Daniel & Meadowcroft, James, 2014. "The journey towards decarbonization: Exploring socio-technical transitions in the electricity sector in the province of Ontario (1885–2013) and potential low-carbon pathways," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 670-679.
    18. Kuokkanen, A. & Nurmi, A. & Mikkilä, M. & Kuisma, M. & Kahiluoto, H. & Linnanen, L., 2018. "Agency in regime destabilization through the selection environment: The Finnish food system’s sustainability transition," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1513-1522.
    19. Sauermann, Henry & Vohland, Katrin & Antoniou, Vyron & Balázs, Bálint & Göbel, Claudia & Karatzas, Kostas & Mooney, Peter & Perelló, Josep & Ponti, Marisa & Samson, Roeland & Winter, Silvia, 2020. "Citizen science and sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(5).
    20. McMeekin, Andrew & Geels, Frank W. & Hodson, Mike, 2019. "Mapping the winds of whole system reconfiguration: Analysing low-carbon transformations across production, distribution and consumption in the UK electricity system (1990–2016)," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1216-1231.

    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:10-24. 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.