Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the general economic climate in the nation, the national industry proile,
energy industry subsidies, and dominant economic development patterns.
he political (and policy) category includes an analysis of four main sub-
categories. he irst investigates national political structure. How a nation
is politically structured inluences the initiatives that reach the policy
agenda and how emergent policies are designed and implemented. he
second subcategory involves analysis of the characteristics of the govern-
ing regime because the ideological make-up of the governing regime inlu-
ences what types of technologies are prioritized and how energy policy is
conceptualized and implemented. he third subcategory examines iscal
health, because this inluences the ability of the ruling regime to inance
change. he inal subcategory investigates the make-up of the policy regime,
itself. How energy policy is designed and which technologies are prioritized
exhibit links to past policy decisions.
As suggested above, the four STEP categories exhibit considerable over-
lap. his is to be expected within a framework for understanding a complex
adaptive system—a system with numerous inluential variables and count-
less interconnections. herefore, in some cases, during the STEP analysis
presented in this topic there will be some choices that the reader may dis-
agree with in regard to which forces have been assigned to which categories.
However, these types of judgments are far less important than ensuring
comprehensive analysis—ensuring that inluential forces have not been
overlooked. In the inal analysis, the goal of a STEP analysis is to provide
a clear methodology for identifying agents of change and predicting emer-
gent trends.
An important feature of a STEP analysis is that it is contextually adapt-
able. For irms in diferent industries the social, technological, economic,
and political variables that most inluence market dynamics vary depend-
ing on the context. For example, religious factors (part of the social sphere)
may inluence the market for some products (i.e., contraceptives) and have
very little inluence on the market for other products (i.e., skateboards).
Moreover, even within the same industrial sector, national contextual dif-
ferences will inluence market dynamics. For example, in Canada the pro-
vision of electricity falls within provincial jurisdiction, suggesting that
provincial policy holds signiicant sway over market developments;
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on
the other hand, in Taiwan the provision of electricity is coordinated at the
national level, suggesting that counties (the Taiwanese version of a prov-
ince) have far less sway over market developments.
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his all suggests that each country will exhibit a unique STEP proile in
terms of what factors most inluence wind power difusion. Nevertheless,
the STEP methodology will be constant throughout, enabling comparative
