Changing the rules? Institutional innovation and the diffusion of microgeneration

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of how institutional change relates to the diffusion of microgeneration energy technologies in the UK, posed in a research project comprising interviews with thirty-one respondents connected with the field of microgeneration in the UK. It analyses the nature of institutional rules in the prevailing regime of electricity generation and in microgeneration niches. It examines how such rules might facilitate systems innovation, or contribute to the maintenance of the prevailing system or partial change. The conclusions of the paper inform and deepen understanding of how conformity to or innovation in institutional rules may hamper or potentially contribute to diffusion of environmentally sustainable microgeneration of energy.

Keywords:

• institutions
• microgeneration
• niches
• regimes
• rules
• innovation
• system change

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Newcastle University for support which enabled the conduct of the research reported in the paper and L. Bird for assistance with data collection.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Audley Genus

Current address: Kingston University, London.