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This paper studies the battle between two types of wind turbines, the gearbox wind turbine and the direct drive wind turbine. Applicable determinants that affect technological dominance for the wind turbine drive trains case are identified. By applying the Best-Worst Method, the relative importance to the determinants to understand which of the two wind turbine drive train types has the highest chance of achieving success are allocated. The results show that energy cost and reliability are the most important determinants, and that at this moment both drive train types still have the potential to become dominant. A contribution is made to the literature on dominant designs by focusing on the energy sector; a sector that has only scarcely been studied before with respect to design dominance. Furthermore, weights for factors for the technology dominance for the case of technology battles for wind turbine technology were established., Economics of Technology and Innovation, Energy & Industry, Transport and Logistics

Power generation is at the forefront of a transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources (RES). Wind energy is a promising technology with rapid developments and the installed base of wind turbines is continuously increasing. Currently, the majority of the installed wind turbines can be categorised under the direct drive wind turbine and the gearbox turbine. Both technologies have a substantial market share and the technological developments in this industry are advancing rapidly. At this stage, it is uncertain which technology will become the dominant design in the future. Therefore, both designs are analysed in this research by the application of the Best-Worst-Method, a type of Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making model. First, a list of factors for technology dominance is established for the technology battle between direct drive and gearbox wind turbines by conducting interviews with experts in the wind turbine market. The relevance of these factors is determined in a literature study. This results in a set of relevant factors that are ranked during a second round of interviews among four categories of experts in the wind turbine market. Furthermore, the experts will ranked the direct drive and gearbox technology with respect to the relevant factors for this specific case. This methodology is applied during three phases of the technology dominance process. Hereby is empirically determined if there is a change in the importance of factors and final technology score throughout the dominance process. This provides insight in which of both designs is most likely to become the dominant design in the future. During this study, a list of 8 relevant factors for the technology battle between direct drive and gearbox wind turbines has been established and two new factors are found. These factors and two technologies have been ranked in three phases of the dominance process resulting in a ranked list of factors and a final technology score. Based on this it is found th