On-farm renewable energy: a ‘classic case’ of technological transition - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 127

Chapter 9

On-farm renewable energy: a 'classic case' of
technological transition

L-A. Sutherland 1 , S. Peter 2 , L. Zagata 3

1 James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen ([e-mail]); 2 Institute for Rural
Development Research, Frankfurt am Main; 3 Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague

Introduction

On-farm renewable energy production can be considered a 'classic case' in relation to
socio-technical transition studies, as it involves a socio-technical niche which remained
largely unrecognized by both the agricultural and energy regimes until landscape pressures
opened up a 'window of opportunity' in the 1990s. Over the 2000s, the niche has become
increasingly integrated into both the agricultural and energy regimes. In this chapter, we
analyse the transition process of on-farm renewable energy production, through case studies
in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, focusing particularly on the role
of renewable technologies in transition within the agricultural regime.
The multi-level perspective (MLP) utilized in this research was originally developed to
assess technology-based transitions (see Darnhofer, this volume, for a discussion of the
MLP). The basic structure of the MLP comes from evolutionary economics and science and
technology studies (Geels and Schot, 2010). These foundations are reflected in the
emphasis on 'socio-technical systems', which place the interaction of technologies within
the context in which they originate and evolve. Within the MLP, major or 'radical'
technological innovations are conceptualized as occurring within niches, whereas
incremental changes occur at regime level, as the regime responds to pressures from the
landscape and other regimes. For radical technological innovations (examples include
transition from horses to automobiles, Geels, 2005; and the introduction of nuclear and
renewable energy into the electricity production regime, Verbong and Geels, 2007) the
focus is on the innovation, evolution and diffusion of technological innovations, typically
within a single regime. However, proponents argue that the source of the innovation is
usually located either on the periphery or outside of the regime which it eventually
influences; owing to the path dependencies of the regime in question, radical innovations
occur at the margins, requiring the protection of niche actors in order to develop (Geels and
Schot, 2010). In this chapter we address a socio-technical transition which (in Europe)
originated in the agricultural sector but which is leading to a radical transition in the energy
sector (in other words multi-regime interaction). We assess it as a transition in progress,
emphasizing the important influence of policy on the rapid increase in renewable energy
production in general, and on farms in particular.