Collaboration or competition? Interactions between floating and fixed-bottom offshore wind in Norway.

• Interactions between partially related technologies are both positive and negative. • Four interaction types are identified: collaboration, diversification, resistance, competition. • Interaction types are dependent on the relative maturity of the technologies in question. • Floating and fixed bottom offshore wind in Norway often displays niche-niche style interactions to stimulate or hinder the market. • Floating and fixed bottom offshore wind in Norway often displays niche-regime style interactions to develop or impede the technology. • Interactions create positive and negative feedback loops. Fixed-bottom offshore wind is exploited as a maturing technology in many European countries. Floating wind has impressive potential for deep waters but needs technological and market development. How these two partially related technologies interact remains unclear. We address the ambiguity of these interactions to investigate floating offshore wind's development. The interactions are divided into technological or market and can be negative (competition and resistance) or positive (collaboration and diversification). We analyze these interaction types through a case study of offshore wind in Norway. Many positive interactions were observed, including knowledge overlaps and infrastructure compatibilities. Negative interactions include competition about future space constraints at ports, labor availability, and resistance by incumbent wind turbine manufacturers. Further, market and technological interactions are mutually influential, creating important feedback loops. Technologies can no longer be simply categorized as 'niche' or 'regime', but rather 'niche-like' (emerging) and 'regime-like' (maturing); hence, both emerging-emerging and emerging-maturing interactions occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]