The development of wind power in China, Europe and the USA: how have policies and innovation system activities co-evolved?

Abstract

This paper takes an innovation system approach to analysing the development of wind energy in three jurisdictions: the EU, USA and China. The paper builds on and extends previous innovation system studies on wind in two ways. First, it focuses on the interactions over time between policy and innovation system dynamics, in order to highlight lessons for low-carbon policymaking. Second, it extends the analysis from the formative and growth phases of the innovation system to the globalisation and transfer phase, in which mature technologies are transferred to new markets. The conclusions are: first, policies should go beyond ‘market pull’ and ‘technology push’ and should take into account the institutional frameworks through which they are delivered; second, policies have been more successful where they prioritised long-term learning-oriented deployment rather than short-term efficiency; third, system failures exist at the transfer stage of development as well as during formative and growth phases.

Keywords:

• technological innovation system
• wind power
• innovation policy

Acknowledgements

This paper was prepared as part of the UCL Grand Challenge on Carbon Governance. Additional support came from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, through the UK Sustainable Hydrogen Energy Consortium ‘plus’ workstream.

Notes

PCT, or Patent Cooperation Treaty patents, are a special kind of patent that is registered with the World Intellectual Property Office and establish an option to claim patent priority on the invention within any PCT signatory nation. They are a useful indicator for global trends.