Search

In recent years a growing number of oil and gas companies have engaged in the energy transition. As a result, it has been claimed that these organisations have the potential to play a significant role in accelerating the energy transition. However, there remains a lack of research into the internal processes through which oil and gas companies establish and develop strategy for such engagement. This research aims to fill that gap through an in-depth, firm-level case study of a large Dutch oil and gas firm. The findings shed light on the internal reorganisation strategy of the firm, highlighting the role of embedded institutional contexts and organisational dynamics. By doing so, this research provides a deeper understanding of the internal processes and contextual factors affecting how and why an oil and gas company can adopt new and varied strategic responses within different low-carbon niches, as well as the boundaries of such engagement.

Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) has potential to act as an enabling technology in the transition to sustainable and low carbon energy systems. It is a relatively mature technology, providing a reliable and large-scale solution to seasonal variations in energy supply and demand where it has been deployed at scale. In practice, however, there remains minimal deployment of STES internationally, with only a small number of countries being exceptions. Here, we analyse STES development in two of these exceptions: the Netherlands and Denmark, and we consider the relevance of the Dutch and Danish STES experiences for other countries, such as the UK, where STES is currently marginal. In explaining the diffusion of STES in leading countries, and its limited uptake elsewhere, we pay attention to energy system context by investigating the complementarities – or misalignments – between different parts of energy systems which have influenced STES deployment. The contribution arising from our mainly qualitative and historical analysis is to demonstrate the importance of contextual factors such as national policy and complementarities between technical and social factors in influencing STES deployment. This approach, we argue, can complement and enrich engineering and economic perspectives on STES.

Interdisciplinary whole systems research (WSR) is attracting increasing interest as a way to address to complex societal challenges such as sustainable energy. However, WSR typically involves challenging research elements (radicaldisciplinary scope, integrativeknowledge production and transdisciplinarydesign), which are seen by some as intellectually and institutionally flawed. Drawing on the interdisciplinary studies literature, this paper considers WSR strategy and practice in the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) over its first two phases (2004–14) and compares UKERC to other similar UK-based initiatives. WSR strategy and practice face a number of tensions: integration versus diversity, stability versus flexibility and independence versus engagement. The emphasis in UKERC was on integration in the first phase and diversity and flexibility in the second phase – a pattern largely imposed by funders, assessors and stakeholders, rather than by internal strategy. Though granted ambitious remits, WSR is often funded, practised and assessed in the margins of disciplinary based research systems, rather than as a distinctive research form. There is a need to better attend to the choices and trade-offs involved in WSR strategy and practice, drawing on the experiences of UKERC and other initiatives. As a guide, the paper introduces a number of interdisciplinary WSR archetypes.

For many observers we are entering an age of heightened disruption in energy systems – a ‘disruption narrative’ is now prominent and seemingly widely-shared. The energy disruption narrative often goes beyond the merely descriptive: it is also often used in a normative way, in that system disruption is seen as a necessary and welcome enabler of the shift to more sustainable and more rapidly decarbonised energy systems. While not denying that there are significant changes underway in the operation and governance of energy systems, I reflect here on the assumptions associated with the disruption narrative and its value as a guide to policy and research. I firstly review some theoretical and empirical research on disruptive innovation, consider some empirical evidence on historic energy system change, and then reflect on the value of a disruptive narrative in ‘energy futures’ research and policy. The disruption narrative is a contestable framing for researchers, across both ‘whole systems’ analysis and more specific technological and organisational level study, and is a problematic guide for policy. Researchers and policymakers should be sceptical of uniform narratives about change, and seek more balanced attention to both disruptive and continuity-based dynamics of energy system change and sustainable transitions.

The rapid phase-out of fossil fuel home heating technologies is a formidable policy challenge. In such situations, referring to other cases of technology phase-out that are in some ways similar can offer useful insights, and a reassuring sense that ‘we have been here before’. However, analogous reasoning of this kind tends to be partial and anecdotal, so it can mislead rather than inform. Here, we seek to draw more fully on analogous evidence to inform fossil fuel technology phase-out in the home heating sector, with particular reference to the UK. We review international energy technology phase-out experiences across three different sectors, five different technology types and twenty countries. We then assemble the evidence into an interpretive framework in which energy technology phase-out is seen as an outcome of distinctive but interacting techno-economic and socio-institutional factors and policy design issues, including: relative cost and performance, infrastructure and system context, public engagement and acceptability, incumbent interests and policy mixes and rationales. While some of these feature prominently in policy debates and transitions research, others command less attention. Providing a fuller representation of the factors involved in energy technology phase-out encourages more robust analogous reasoning in policy and research, recognising differences as well as similarities and the extent to which we have been here before.