The bumpy road of biomass gasification in the Netherlands: Explaining the rise and fall of an emerging innovation system

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Abstract

In this paper, the concept of System Functions of Innovation Systems is applied to provide an explanation of the success or failure of an emerging technology, i.e. biomass gasification, with empirical data on the evolution of this technology in the Netherlands during 1980–2004. A new list of System Functions has been developed lately and is used to identify the most relevant events in the evolution of the Biomass Gasification Innovation System. We show that a structural misalignment occurred between the institutional framework within which the technology could have been developed and the technical requirements of the technology. Finally, the absence of System Functions such as the guidance of the search, resource allocation and advocacy coalition explains the failure of this technology over time.

Introduction

The issue of stimulating the development, diffusion, and application of renewable energy (renewables) remains high on the political agenda of many countries. Despite numerous attempts in this direction, such as the set up of European research programs for the demonstration and promotion of renewable energies,1 it has proven to be difficult to replace large quantities of fossil fuels with renewable alternatives. Actually, the renewable energy supply for IEA2 countries has increased from 4.6% of the total primary energy supply in 1970 to 5.5% of the same in 2001 [1]. However, Jacobsson and Johnson [2] counter these disappointing figures by noting that a process of diffusion of renewables is now starting to take place. They base this more optimistic message on the high annual growth rates of different renewable energy sources. The annual growth of total renewables supply has been 2.3% over the last 33 years. Notably, the same for new renewables (including geothermal, solar, and wind) has been 8% during the same period. Despite such high growth rates, the share of renewable energy sources in global Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) remains low due to the vast size of the global energy market.

The current situation of heavy dependency on fossil fuels3 and the difficulty for renewables to have a major breakthrough is captured well by the term: ‘carbon lock-in’ [3]. Under this condition, fossil fuel technology benefits from long periods of experience, leading to high efficiency, low costs, optimal institutional arrangements, and many vested interests [3]. As a result, the emerging market for renewables has to depend very much on government support to expand. Many obstacles are also to be overcome in order to realize their smooth diffusion. Since these obstacles differ for each country and for each technology, our knowledge on the diffusion process of renewable technologies is limited. More insight is, therefore, needed on the process through which renewable technologies emerge and how they are able to achieve successful diffusion in society.

From the earlier studies on the transformation of energy system [4], [5], we have learned that the success of a new technology is not only determined by its technical characteristics but also by the ability of the Innovation System (IS) that develops, diffuses, implements, or rejects new biomass technologies. A well functioning IS vastly improves the chances for the success of the technology in question to be developed and diffused.

In this paper, we analyze the development and diffusion of biomass gasification technology in the particular context of the Netherlands. The choice of this technology is justified by the fact that biomass is considered to be one of the most promising alternatives to replace fossil fuels since it is a diverse energy carrier with a multitude of potential sources and applications. The gasification technology, in turn, is generally considered to be a very promising technology to convert biomass into useful products. First, the conversion efficiency of biomass into electricity is much higher than that for biomass combustion and digestion. Second, by means of gasification, besides the production of electricity, biomass can also be converted into feedstock for the chemical industry and for the production of liquid biofuels. The expectations around this technology are, therefore, quite high and many actors see it as the technology to achieve a breakthrough for biomass as modern energy source [6], [7], [8], [9]. However, despite its high efficiency, wide range of applications, and high expectations, biomass gasification has not been successfully developed, diffused, and implemented in the Netherlands so far.

Our main research question, therefore, is: What are the inducement and blocking mechanisms that have determined the evolution of biomass gasification in the Netherlands?

This question is addressed by utilizing the Innovation System concept as a framework and the empirical data on the evolution of this technology in the Netherlands during 1980–2004.

Section snippets

Technological change and Innovation Systems

The underlying theory of this paper focuses on how to break out of the ‘lock-in’ of established systems and how to resolve the difficulty that firms encounter when developing new technologies and bringing them to the market. Unruh [3] argues that “industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel-based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co-evolution driven by path-dependant increasing returns to scale.” He calls this situation ‘carbon lock-in’, since it

Historical Event Analysis

We propose to use as much quantitative indicators as possible in order to be able to map functional patterns over time. For this purpose, we developed a method inspired by ‘Historical Event Analysis’ as used by Van de Ven et al. [16] and Poole et al. [17]. Stemming from organizational theory, their focus is mainly on the company and company networks. But, in our case, the analysis is applied to a technological system level. Basically, our approach consists of retrieving as many historical

Gasification technology

The traditional way to convert biomass into electricity is through biomass combustion. The hot exhaust gases of the combustion process are subsequently used to produce steam that is processed through a steam turbine to generate electricity. An innovative and more efficient method is gasification of biomass. In this case biomass is combusted in an oxygen-starved environment, where the end products are CO and H2 gases (so called product gas or syn(thesis) gas). In contrast to solid biomass, this

Functional pattern

In this section, the functional patterns are described by using graphical representations; the number of events per function per year is plotted over time. The patterns observed are explained by referring to specific events within the storyline, as given above.

All figures show a remarkable absence of activity before the 1990s (see Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6). In the 1990s things change; the main driving force within the Biomass Gasification Innovation System now is the search for

Conclusions

Despite the promises of high-energy conversion efficiency and the wide variety of applications, biomass gasification has not been successfully developed and implemented in the Netherlands. We applied the Functions of Innovation Systems framework to obtain more insight in the dynamics of the Biomass Gasification Innovation System and the determining factors that induced or blocked the evolution of this new technology. The most important insights gained are highlighted below.

The main inducement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Andre Faaij, Professor Staffan Jacobsson, Dr. Koen Frenken, Dr. Frank Geels and Dr. Iris Lewandowski for their useful comments on previous versions. Special thanks also to Drs. Anouk Florentinus who had a significant role in empirical data collection. We would also like to thank Professor Cees Daey Ouwens and Dr. Wim Willeboer for their time and comments. We are also very grateful for the useful comments of two anonymous reviewers. Finally, we would like to

Simona O. Negro (MSc) and Roald A.A. Suurs (MSc) are PhD students at the Innovation Studies group, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

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    Simona O. Negro (MSc) and Roald A.A. Suurs (MSc) are PhD students at the Innovation Studies group, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

    Marko P. Hekkert is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Innovation at the Innovation Studies group, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

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