Ordering Change: The Dynamics of Energy Transition and Capitalist Power

The study of energy transition is crucial to confronting the risks of climate change. However, it lacks a methodical approach to understanding relations of capitalist power, energy regime, and transitional dynamics. This study offers a systematic analysis of how business power shapes and controls socio-technical change under varying energy capture and power accumulation conditions. [***] The research’s novel analytical perspective differentiates between four ideal-types of socio-technical pathways (structural change, stagnation, innovation, transformation) and relates these to changes in the breadth and depth of energy capture (exergy and energy conversion efficiency, respectively), and in the dominant business strategies which lead differential capital accumulation. [***] I use a mixed-method research approach: the quantitative study of social power dynamics as they are represented in differential prices is complemented by qualitative content analysis. [***] I explore two case studies: the historical process of transition to fossil-fuels and industrial capitalism in 19th century Britain; and the German Energiewende – the contemporary energy transition process that combines a decarbonization of the German electricity system with a reorganisation of the sector’s ownership structure. To achieve a better understanding of socio-technical change pathways under capitalism, the undetermined Energiewende process is studied against the fulfilled transformative process of transition to fossil-fuels, in the context of their respective energy capture and differential accumulation conditions. [***] The quantitative analysis is based on new conceptual tools developed for this study. These tools integrate the differential analysis of physical data, used to study industrial change, with financial and accounting records data, used to study business processes. The German case study also includes an analysis of in-depth interviews with business representatives from the German electricity sector. [***] The results suggest that rather than growth in energy capture, it is the ability to control the socio-technical process which is essential to the reproduction of capitalist power. As shown in the analysis of both, admittedly very different, case studies, it was only when dominant business formations (or their precursors) acquired a mechanism through which to shape and control processes of socio-technical change that these could be leveraged in differential capital accumulation. [***] The British case study analysis traces a period which I term the energy-core’s seven good years of differential accumulation (1894-1900), during which, as rates of change in the transition to fossil-fuels began to decline, energy-intensive businesses began to supplement the control of output by early price-shaping mechanisms. [***] The Energiewende case study analysis shows how dominant electricity generation firms in Germany regained sectoral control by seizing the shrinking conventional generation capacity necessary to secure reliable electricity supply in the context of increasing variable (renewable) energy resource penetration. Thus, an implicit threat to future grid reliability gained German conventional electricity generation firms the leverage needed to increase differential prices and profits. This process coincides with spatial centralization, ownership concentration, and decreasing penetration rates of renewable energy resources in Germany. [***] The study sheds light on the relations between dominant business strategies, and the techno-physical attributes, scope, and pace of energy transition processes under capitalism.