Abstract
The international diffusion of environmental innovations is getting increasing attention as an opportunity to improve competitiveness. Especially in the energy sector, countries use policy support to this end. A recent goal in this context is the formation of “lead markets”, which represents the idea that countries can build up first-mover advantages that will increase their competitiveness. Taking the lead in international diffusion of a particular innovation benefits a country’s industry through creating increasing returns of technological development and stimulating exports to expanding international markets. Interaction between national and international forces affecting renewable energy innovation and its diffusion has received fairly little attention so far. Here, we investigate the formation of lead markets for wind power technologies in China, Germany and the USA to see whether policy support of renewable energy innovation is capable of improving competitiveness. An extension of the current lead market framework is developed to include supply side factors and technology policy issues. The comparative analysis of lead market potential for wind power indicates a high level of internationalization of the industry with countries holding lead positions in specific parts the supply chain. Competitive advantages were built upon policy support but tended to shift among countries.
Highlights
Climate change is pushing a transition towards a new energetic system
The adoption of priority access to the grid by China following the standards first established in Germany is the only clear example of a lead market advantage in wind power mainly built upon policy support
No pattern of reproduction of instruments could be identified among the three countries, thereby no clear lead market advantage. This is in line with research showing that the design of policy support for renewable energy changes significantly to be adapted to local conditions, such as wind intensity, land availability, community acceptance
Summary
Climate change is pushing a transition towards a new energetic system. Since energy use is responsible for about 83% of global anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions [1], current patterns of energy production and consumption have to be transformed to avoid dangerous climate change. We examine the formation of lead markets regarding wind power technologies in China, Germany and USA, the three countries with larger installed capacity. For this purpose, we apply and extend the “lead market” approach from. Whether lead markets were formed and have created competitive advantages at the country level are the questions that guide our research In this way, we intend to contribute to the literature on environmental innovation and sustainability transition studies, in line with the recent calls for addressing spatial factors [15,16,17].
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