The Great Reconfiguration: A Socio-Technical Analysis of Low-Carbon Transitions in UK Electricity, Heat, and Mobility Systems

by Frank W Geels, Bruno Turnheim

This book is intended for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the dynamics and governance of low-carbon transitions. Drawing on the Multi-Level Perspective, it develops a whole system reconfiguration approach that explains how the incorporation of multiple innovations can cumulatively reconfigure existing systems. The book focuses on UK electricity, heat, and mobility systems, and it systematically analyses interactions between radical niche-innovations and existing (sub)systems across techno-economic, policy, and actor dimensions in the past three decades. Comparative analysis explains why the unfolding low-carbon transitions in these three systems vary in speed, scope, and depth. It evaluates to what degree these transitions qualify as Great Reconfigurations and assesses the future potential for, and barriers to, deeper low-carbon system transitions. Generalising across these systems, broader lessons are developed about the roles of incumbent firms, governance and politics, user engagement, wider public, and civil society organisations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

392 pages, Paperback

Published May 12, 2022

Reviews

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I emailed Frank Geels once and he didn’t reply.

All in all pretty good especially the section on the electricity sector. My main takeaway was that technological change isn’t dependent on niche actors displacing incumbents - rather it’s about how the incumbents transition and take on novel innovations that makes up the bulk of change.