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Conditions and intervention strategies for the deliberate acceleration of socio-technical transitions: Lessons from a comparative multi-level analysis of two historical case studies in Dutch and Danish heating

Cameron RobertsSustainability Research Institute; University of Leeds, UKjcameronroberts@gmail.com

Frank W. GeelsManchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR) and Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI); University of Manchester, UK frank.geels@manchester.ac.uk

Published as: Roberts, C. and Geels, F.W., 2019, Conditions and intervention strategies for the deliberate acceleration of socio-technical transitions: Lessons from a comparative multi-level analysis of two historical case studies in Dutch and Danish heating , Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, in press, https://doi.org/10.1080/09537325.2019.1584286 .

Abstract:

Policy-oriented transition frameworks such as Strategic Niche Management, Transition Management, and Technological Innovation Systems offer limited analytical traction on deliberately accelerated socio-technical transitions. Using the Multi-Level Perspective as guiding framework, we therefore inductively explore the political acceleration of socio-technical transitions by investigating two deliberately accelerated heating transitions: the transition from coal and oil to natural gas in the Netherlands (1948-1973), and the transition from oil to district heating in Denmark (1945-1990), to draw lessons about the conditions and intervention strategies that facilitate rapid socio-technical change. We find that both cases were characterized by weakened regimes, stabilized niche-innovations, focusing events, and consensus between policymakers and business actors. User resistance was also low in both cases, partly because of public policies. Different focusing events in each case produced problem-driven versus opportunity-driven transition pathways; the former destabilized existing regimes but generated future-oriented uncertainty, while the latter facilitated rapid closure.

Keywords: Socio-technical transitions; Deliberate acceleration; Policy; Sustainability transitions; Multi-level perspective

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1. Introduction

The urgency of climate change has made the rapid diffusion of low-carbon technologies and the parallel decline of carbon-intensive systems a critical requirement for sustainability (Turnheim and Geels 2012; Kivimaa and Kern 2016). This has made the pace and potential acceleration of socio-technical transitions an interesting and important research topic (Sovacool, 2016; Kern and Rogge, 2016; Sovacool and Geels, 2016; Grubler et al., 2016; Roberts et al., 2018). While the mainstream technological diffusion literature remains relevant to this problem (Rogers, 1995; Geroski, 2000), it has several limitations (Grübler, 1991; Lyytinen and Damsgaard, 2000): it mostly focuses on discrete artefacts rather than broader socio-technical systems (including infrastructure); its focus on adopters downplays the importance of firms, policymakers, and wider publics; it was also not developed to account for the policy-accelerated diffusion of technologies relevant to collective good problems like climate change. We therefore consider the topic of acceleration with a specific focus on multiple actors including policymakers, using the lens of socio-technical system transitions.

There is disagreement over the scope for rapid sustainability transitions. Some scholars (e.g. Smil, 2010) suggest that large-scale socio-technical transitions are necessarily slow, while others (e.g. Sovacool, 2016) provided historical examples of rapid transitions leading to debates over selection criteria and applicability to large-scale, present-day transitions (Grubler et al., 2016). Scholars arguing for the possibility of rapid transitions suggest that most historical energy transitions were emergent and undirected changes, while present-day low-carbon transitions may be faster because they are being deliberately pushed by governments and other powerful actors (Kern and Rogge, 2016; Sovacool and Geels, 2016).This raises further questions about how policymakers or other powerful actors can deliberately accelerate socio-technical transitions. Markard et al.’s (2012) literature review identifies three policy-oriented frameworks, including transition management (Loorbach, 2010), strategic niche management (Kemp et al., 1998), and technological innovation systems (Hekkert et al., 2007). While these frameworks propose practical policies, they all leave big questions unanswered. Firstly, they mostly focus on the development of sustainable innovations in early phases, rather than addressing wide diffusion and system change. This is important, because dynamics in the earlier “formative phase”, when innovations are first being developed, are different from those in the “acceleration phase” (Bento and Wilson, 2016). Secondly, they do not give a detailed consideration of the political obstacles to policy intervention in transitions, which can be formidable (Meadowcroft, 2009; Geels, 2014). Thirdly, they limitedly engage with ‘traditional’ policy instruments (financial, regulatory), which are likely to be important for acceleration and rapid diffusion of socio-technical systems (Meadowcroft, 2009).

We contribute to this debate by conducting an exploratory empirical analysis to investigate two aspects of deliberately accelerated transitions: 1) the intervention strategies useful in encouraging the breakthrough of socio-technical systems from initial niche markets, 2) the conditions under which policymakers can implement these strategies, particularly in light of resistance from incumbent actors. Since few low-carbon transitions have reached the acceleration phase, we investigate these issues using two historical case studies of deliberately accelerated socio-technical transitions.

Section 2 reviews the dominant transition approaches regarding policy intervention, identifying key unanswered questions, and proposing initial tentative answers to the research questions, based on

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the Multi-Level Perspective. Section 3 describes the comparative case study methodology. Sections 4 and 5 present our historical case studies on the transition from coal and oil-based heating to natural gas-based heating in the Netherlands (1948-1973), and the transition from oil heating to district heating in Denmark (1945-1990). The analysis in section 6 compares these cases to answer the two research questions. Section 7 draws conclusions about the intervention strategies to accelerate transitions and the conditions under which these strategies can be introduced. It also articulates wider lessons and discusses limitations.

2. Literature review and conceptual framework

2.1 Policy intervention in transitions: A review of three frameworksMarkard et al.’s (2012) literature review of sustainability transitions identifies three conceptual frameworks that also propose policy strategies,1 each of which offers its own valuable insights, but all of which have common and important problems. The first of these, stemming from the broader innovation systems tradition, is the Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) approach, which argues that technological development involves the creation of networks of actors that collectively develop innovations (Jacobsson and Johnson, 2000). This process includes several functional activities: knowledge development and diffusion, entrepreneurial experimentation, influence on the direction of search, market formation, legitimation, resource mobilization and the development of positive externalities (Hekkert et al., 2007; Bergek et al., 2008a). While the shift between a ‘formative phase’ and a ‘growth phase’ (Jacobsson and Bergek, 2004), is described as the result of from ‘cumulative causation’ and self-reinforcing interactions between these functions (Bergek et al., 2008a), most TIS scholarship and policy advice focused on the formative phase, emphasising instruments that enhance innovation activities, such as R&D subsidies, experiments, target-setting, and articulation of visions (Bergek et al., 2008b). The breakthrough of new technologies and their associated systems into mainstream markets, however, is likely to involve more than just an efficient innovation system: it also requires changes to infrastructures, regulatory reform, major investments, changing user habits, and other social developments.

The second perspective, Strategic Niche Management (SNM), focuses on the problem of how to nurture radical innovations and their associated social networks until they are competitive with incumbents (Kemp et al, 1998). This occurs in niches, which provide ‘protected spaces’, sheltering radical innovations from mainstream markets to allow development and learning processes (Smith and Raven, 2012). SNM policies include subsidies for experiments and demonstration projects, network management, and foresight exercises, followed by the controlled removal of protections and increased engagement with diffusion once the niche-innovation is sufficiently developed (Schot and Geels, 2008). While much of the SNM literature does not offer a detailed discussion of diffusion or acceleration, Smith and Raven (2012: 1026) started to investigate how innovations can “escape their protective spaces”. They particularly highlighted the importance of ‘empowerment’, i.e. activities through which niche advocates aim to bring about changes in the rules and selection criteria of broader socio-technical regimes. Empowerment is an inherently political and negotiated process involving the building of coalitions and the deployment of narratives that justify further niche support policies or changes in regime rules (Boon et al., 2014; Kern et al., 2015; Smith and

1 The fourth perspective considered by Markard et al. is the multi-level perspective, which is more descriptive than prescriptive and will be discussed in section 2.2 as an analytical basis for the rest of this paper.

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Raven, 2012; Verhees et al., 2013). While this recent literature breaks important new ground, it mainly takes a niche advocate perspective rather than a public policy perspective, which is this paper’s focus.

Transition Management (TM) provides a third approach for intervening in transitions, characterised as ‘goal-oriented modulation’ (Kemp et al., 2007 Loorbach, 2010), in which actors in ‘transition arenas’ develop long-term visions which suggest transition pathways that are explored with short-term projects, whose learning outcomes inform subsequent visions. Its focus on experiments and visions, however, still orients the framework towards early-stage interventions, and does not consider the wider-scale commitment to the rapid upscaling of a new system. Meadowcroft also comments that TM insufficiently engages with traditional policy instruments, which are likely to be important for diffusion and acceleration, although his point also applies to TIS and SNM: “Transition management is closely associated with certain kinds of policy instrument (particularly sector-based collective visioning exercises, collaborative and experimental projects, and state expenditure to promote networking and innovation in technologies and practices). But more traditional policy tools including regulation, planning, and tax-based instruments remain an essential part of governance for sustainable development” (Meadowcroft (2009: 335).

All three approaches mainly engage with early phases of transitions, and much less with diffusion and acceleration. They also emphasise opening up, using experiments, visioning, and bottom-up governance structures to create a plurality of radical innovations. This is important for the early stages of transitions, when incumbent systems often shut out new innovations (Stirling, 2008). This is only half of the story, however. Accelerated breakthrough also requires a process of closing down, in which policy resources, user practices, investments, business models, and technological trajectories converge and shift to support system expansion, as the state cannot support broad diffusion of multiple alternatives, nor can businesses defect from the incumbent system if there is no clear alternative to defect to. The existing transition literature on policy interventions does not account for this. This therefore sets out the first problem for this article: What interventions can deliberately accelerate the creation of a new system based on a niche-innovation?

This process of closing down and acceleration is a highly political process, which shuts out or co-opts not just competing innovations, but often also powerful regime players (Geels, 2014). Clearly this political power can be overcome, as there are documented cases of policymakers throwing considerable support behind a new system that challenges the status quo (Sovacool, 2016). As of yet, however, there is little understanding of the conditions under which this can happen.

The transitions literature does not see the state as an all-powerful and all-knowing actor that can steer transitions by pulling levers from an outside ‘cockpit’ point of view (Hajer et al., 2015). Policymakers are instead embedded in socio-technical systems, dependent both on firms and wider publics for critical resources (e.g. knowledge, finance, innovation, jobs, legitimacy, and consent). Political processes thus include a wide range of actors and social groups outside of traditional political circles, meaning that the conditions for major policy change are shaped by many influences including pressure from interest groups (Geels, 2014; Markard et al., 2016), industrial struggles (Hess, 2014); as well as ideologies, cultures, and discourses (Bergek et al., 2008b; Roberts and Geels, 2018).

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Ordinarily these external influences are forces for stability, but when some of them begin to shift away from the incumbent regime, they can break policymakers’ commitment to it, allowing them to throw their support behind a new system. Some political science approaches therefore emphasise the role of shocks, such as exogenous developments (e.g. war, oil crisis) or critical problems in incumbent systems, as a key factor facilitating radical policy change (Hall, 1993; Kingdon, 1984; Baumgartner and Jones, 1993). These literatures still leave some questions unanswered, however. They do not yet describe how these shocks are translated into concrete actions in a socio-technical transitions context. And they mostly see shocks as negative crises, rather than considering the potential for positive opportunities, such as the sudden appearance of a new and promising technology or resource discovery. This deficiency is particularly glaring in the context of transitions scholarship, which places considerable importance on the emergence of promising innovations. This therefore sets out the second problem for this article: Under what socio-technical conditions is it viable for policymakers to throw their support behind a new socio-technical system, accelerating its breakthrough?

2.2 The conditions for deliberate acceleration in the Multi-Level PerspectiveInvestigating the research questions outlined above requires understanding how radical innovations diffuse more widely from initial niches. Because the TIS, SNM and TM frameworks tend to focus on early phases of transitions, they have limitations in addressing this issue. We therefore use the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions as theoretical starting point, because this broader framework addresses all transition phases, including accelerated diffusion. The MLP distinguishes three analytical levels (Geels, 2004; 2018): a) niches, as the sheltered space where radical innovations emerge, b) socio-technical regime, which refer to the rules and institutions that shape incumbent actors and lock-in existing systems, and c) the socio-technical landscape, which refers to external developments (including shocks).

Transitions come about through alignments between developments at these three levels, and occur through four phases (Geels, 2005). In the first phase, radical innovations emerge in small niches on the fringe of existing regimes (Kemp et al., 1998), developed by unstable and fragile innovator networks, or by new entrants from other, more powerful industries. In the second phase, the innovation enters small market niches that provide resources for further development and specialization, allowing the emergence of a dominant design and the stabilisation of rules. The third phase is characterised by a wide diffusion and competition with the existing regime. This process depends upon niche-internal drivers such as price/performance improvements, scale and learning economies, the development of complementary technologies and infrastructures (Arthur, 1989), positive cultural discourses and support from powerful actors (Smith and Raven, 2012), as well as the destabilisation of the incumbent regime due to persistent internal problems, landscape pressures or a combination of the two (Roberts, 2017). The fourth phase is characterized by system substitution and institutionalization in new regimes.

Although the varying role of public policies in these four transition phases has not yet been systematically analysed, scholars have suggested that transitions are not driven by single policies but by policy mixes (Kivimaa et al., 2014; Rogge and Reichardt, 2016; Kivimaa and Kern, 2016), which are likely to vary over time. Geels et al. (2015) distinguished three kinds of policy approaches (Table 1), and suggested that: “Policy instruments from the network governance paradigm are likely to be most important in early phases of system transitions, which are characterized by uncertainty, open-

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ended learning, and network building. In later phases, when there is more clarity (about technical performance, consumer practices, infrastructure requirements), other policy instruments (e.g. regulations, standards, taxes, subsidies, financial incentives) tend to become more important, aimed at widespread deployment and uptake” (p. 7-8). This suggestion resonates with Meadowcroft’s above-mentioned diagnosis that TM (and TIS and SNM, we add) draws primarily on one kind of policy approach (interactive network governance), which is fine for early transition phases. But, as initial answer to our first research question, we will further explore Geels et al.’s suggestion that policy instruments from the ‘classic steering’ and ‘market model’ approaches will become more important for diffusion and acceleration.

Classic steering (top-down)

Market model (bottom-up)

Interactive network governance

Social relationships

Hierarchical, command-and-control relations, with government responsible for steering markets and society.

Policymakers have arms-length relations with firms and societal actors, which are assumed to be autonomous and relatively independent.

Mutually dependent interactions between policymakers, firms and societal actors.

Government roles

Government sets goals and selects solutions (sometimes after consultation in closed corporatist policy networks) and shapes implementation through laws, regulations, standards, public investments.

Policymakers articulate goals and shape framework conditions (rules of the game, incentives), but let autonomous actors self-organize via markets and choose solutions.

Policymakers moderate, orchestrate, and facilitate social interactions, discussions, learning processes and information exchange, aimed at defining problems and exploring solutions.

Scientific disciplines

Classic political science. Neo-classical economy. Sociology, innovation studies, neo-institutional theory.

Policy instruments

Formal rules, regulations, laws, standards, state-led investment programs.

Financial incentives (subsidies, taxes, fiscal incentives).

Sector-level round tables, public private partnerships, demonstration projects, experiments, scenario workshops, strategic foresight conferences, public debates.

Table 1: Different policy approaches (adapted from Geels et al., 2015: 8)

With regard to our second research question, the MLP usefully suggests two extreme conditions for the deliberate policy acceleration of transitions. At one extreme, policymakers can react to niche-level opportunities such as technological breakthroughs, major improvements in price or performance, or the opening up of new markets. These opportunities may entice policymakers to defect from the regime to niche-innovation, using policy interventions such as subsidies, regulations or infrastructure funding to expand the new system.

At the other extreme, policymakers can react to regime problems, created either by internal tensions or landscape shocks which both undermine incumbent actors’ political influence, and give policymakers an incentive to implement alternatives (Turnheim and Geels, 2012; Di Lucia and

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Ericsson, 2014). If a feasible alternative is not available, policymakers will likely follow the de-alignment and re-alignment pathway suggested by Geels and Schot (2007): there will be a period of uncertainty as they search for a solution, followed by a period of aggressive policy efforts to upscale the chosen solution.

While most real-world cases of deliberate acceleration will involve elements from both these extremes, this dichotomy nevertheless creates a useful basis for exploratory research. We note, however, that this initial answer to conditions for deliberate acceleration is contextual, because of the MLP’s ‘outside-in’ orientation. This distal explanation can be complemented with a more agentic or ‘inside-out’ explanation, which we will address in the case analysis in section 6.

3. Methodology

We used a comparative historical case study research strategy, with the two extreme patterns in mind, to account for the complexities of interactions between the three levels of the multi-level perspective (Flyvbjerg, 2006), and to allow for variety in the policies and conditions of deliberately accelerated transitions. We chose the following historical cases:

The transition from coal and oil to natural gas-based heating in the Netherlands, which accelerated after the discovery of the Slochteren gas field in 1959.

The transition from oil-heating to district heating in Denmark, which accelerated after the energy crises of the 1970s.

One reason for our choice is that heating is a complex system which is socially important (especially in Northern European countries), making policymakers risk-averse when it comes to encouraging major technological changes. This makes the heat sector a critical case, whose findings are more likely to also apply to less high-stakes sectors (Flyvbjerg, 2006). Another reason is that policymakers in both cases implemented deliberate acceleration strategies, but in different conditions, which facilitates useful comparisons. The transition to district heating in Denmark followed a de-alignment and re-alignment pathway (Geels and Schot, 2007), initiated by a sudden dramatic problem (1973 oil price shock), and resulting in the development of a new technology by local cooperatives and municipalities. The Dutch case, in contrast, followed a technological substitution pathway, where the discovery of a new resource created an opportunity to replace the old heating system based on coal and oil, through the actions of large, multinational companies.

We used secondary historical sources to identify the key events in each case study. In the Danish case, to overcome the language barrier, these sources were supplemented by interviews with academics familiar with the transition, who helped to fill in some key details. To highlight the acceleration strategies and conditions, we follow Bento and Wilson (2016) in dividing each case into a formative phase, in which the niche-innovation gradually emerges, and an acceleration phase, in which the transition speeds up. Within each phase, we investigate the main event sequences for both the existing regime and the niche-innovation (which becomes a regime in the acceleration phase). Our niche and regime descriptions address multiple socio-technical dimensions of the transition, including developments in technologies, policies, user preferences, public discourses, and industry. By tracing event chains within and between these dimensions, we identify the most important developments in each case, which can then be compared to suggest wider conditions of deliberate acceleration strategies. Because both cases analyse multi-dimensional developments over

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several decades, we cannot address all nuances and complexities, so there is a trade-off between depth and breath.

4. Dutch transition from coal and oil to gas-based heating (1948-1973)

Natural gas, initially a by-product of the oil industry, was first used in the Netherlands in the 1950s, primarily for lighting and cooking, while most heating was fuelled with coal. This changed after the discovery of the very large Slochteren gas field in 1959, whose sheer size required new institutional arrangements and physical infrastructures, prompting a nationwide transition to natural gas heating led by an alliance of the state and the fossil fuel industry (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Dutch heat market, 1947-1998. Data from van Overbeeke (2001)

The formative phase of this case stretches from 1948, when fossil fuel exploration began in The Netherlands, to the discovery of the Slochteren field in 1959. The second phase goes from that point until 1973, when the oil crisis inaugurated a new era in the Dutch gas sector (Correljé et al., 2003).

4.1 Formative phase (1948-1959)Apart from small amounts of natural gas usage in areas near gas fields, gas energy in the Netherlands prior to 1959 was "city gas," produced by coal gasification and used primarily for cooking. Early institutional and technological experiments with gas, combined with the slow stagnation of the coal industry, set the stage for a more rapid transition to gas heating after 1959.

4.1.1 Incumbent heating regimeThe Dutch heating regime at the end of the Second World War was dependent on coal, much of it domestic, which was burned in stoves and boilers and gasified into “city gas”, which was distributed locally and used as lighting and cooking fuel (Correljé et al., 2003; Raven and Verbong, 2007).By the late 1940s, however, Dutch coal was under pressure, both from cheaper American coal, and from

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the increasing prominence of oil heating (Figure 2). The Dutch coal industry therefore stagnated after about 1950, weakening its political and commercial power (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Dutch oil, coal, and natural gas production, 1946-1973. Data from Statistics Netherlands (2017)

From a user perspective, the coal-based heating regime was both frustrating and inconvenient, which further encouraged the use of oil boilers. Coal had to be hand-delivered, stored, and stoked, and then ash had to be handled after burning. Precise heat control was also difficult with coal furnaces (Correljé et al., 2003; Correlje and Verbong, 2004).

Policy and public discourses around the heating sector remained relatively stable during this period. Heat was treated as a boring topic that did not arouse very much interest or controversy, apart from inflated expectations about nuclear power, which, it was widely believed, would soon provide abundant cheap energy and make fossil fuels obsolete (Ligtvoet et al., 2016).

4.1.2 Gas heating nicheThe aforementioned city gas infrastructure provided an important niche for natural gas, despite being effectively a part of the coal regime. While city gas was not primarily used for heating, it did create some relevant learning opportunities, particularly in the town of Coevorden, where city gas infrastructure was adapted to distribute natural gas from nearby oil fields. This was related to a government policy ambition of the 1950s, to develop a national gas supply system, on the grounds that it would be a clean and desirable fuel (Heren, 1999; Bundelmann, 2013). The government scored a major and important victory for this project in 1954, when they brokered an agreement between private gas company NAM (an alliance of Exxon and Shell), and the state gas company SGB, saying that SGB would distribute NAM's gas on a cost-plus basis (Correljé and Verbong, 2004).This

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established a precedent that Dutch gas would be sold on a monopoly basis with heavy state involvement, and also established a relatively high fixed price, which would be important during the acceleration phase (Correlje et al 2003). It also developed the oil industry into a source of countervailing industrial power that could challenge the coal and city gas industries. The project ran into political problems, however, as attempts to develop a national gas supply infrastructure were blocked by local city gas networks (Raven and Verbong, 2007).

Another barrier to natural gas came from prevailing business models and discursive assumptions among actors in the fossil fuel industry, who saw natural gas as a low-margin by-product of their primary business (Correljé et al., 2003). They therefore looked for reliable ways to dispose of the gas, rather than for highly profitable markets (Correljé et al., 2003). This was likely a major reason why NAM agreed to the 1954 gas agreement, but it also posed an obstacle for further expansion. Gas also faced significant commercial pressures during this period, particularly from electricity, which competed both for coal supply and for the lighting and cooking markets (Correljé and Verbong, 2004).

4.2 Acceleration phase (1959-1973)Big changes in the Dutch natural gas sector began in July 1959, after NAM discovered the Slochteren field, whose sheer size necessitated new negotiations between the state and the fossil fuel industry over how best to exploit it. This led to a decision to radically transform the country's energy system to sell the gas; a plan that resulted in rapid changes to infrastructure, user habits, business models, and public discourse.

4.2.1 Expanding natural gas systemThe Slochteren field threatened to create a bottleneck in Dutch gas infrastructure, while also overwhelming the capacity of the institutions handling the production and sale of natural gas (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). This led to a series of negotiations between the state and industry which were facilitated by a pro-business political culture with substantial state involvement, but complicated by many pre-existing motives and goals of the various factions, which led to different ideas of what to do with the gas. Shell preferred segmented markets, due to their scepticism over the profitability of selling the gas domestically (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). Exxon, however, had bad experiences with their American fossil fuel products being undercut by offshore natural gas, and so preferred a national transition to natural gas as the primary heating and cooking fuel (Heren, 1999). The state was primarily interested in maximising revenue from the gas field, and like Shell, was sceptical about the profitability of Exxon’s plan. But when simulations showed the profitability of a transition to gas, the state got on-board (Correljé and Verbong, 2004).

The plan was also supported by discursive developments, such as a pan-European antipollution lobby that opposed coal, oil, and nuclear power (Odell, 1988), and excited visions about Slochteren providing an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy (Correljé et al., 2003).

The details of the agreement were negotiated between NAM, and Dutch coal mining company DSM, which acted on behalf of the state, and the outcome of this negotiation was published in a 1962 white paper that established three principles for the exploitation of the gas: maximising state revenue, stabilising energy markets, and establishing arms-length government control of the sector (Correljé and Odell, 2000). It also ensured both the profitability and acceptability of the plan through the "market value principle": consumers would never pay more for gas than they would for coal or

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oil, but would also not pay much less. Financial incentives increased with use, however, because gas prices were fixed along a regressive scale (Van Overbeeke, 2001). At low volumes (less than 600 m3/year), where natural gas competed with city gas and coal for cooking applications), the price was set at 20-25cent/m3, which was not much cheaper than city gas or coal, implying that convenience was the main competitive edge. For higher volumes (600-2100 m3/year), where natural gas competed with coal and oil stoves for heating applications, the price was initially set at 10cent/m3, which was somewhat cheaper than fuel oil and substantially cheaper than coal (Van Overbeeke, 2001). In 1966, a cheaper category (7cent/m3) was introduced for household use over 2100 m3/year, which (successfully) stimulated the use of gas for central heating (which entailed a qualitative shift from heating single rooms towards heating the whole house).

Once an agreement was reached, developments occurred very rapidly. Construction of the national gas network was begun in 1963, and was connected to the final mainland municipality in 1968 (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). This involved delicate negotiations with agricultural interests, urban planners, roads, water systems, railways, and actors involved with archaeological and military sites, many of whom were compensated (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). Meanwhile, city gas networks were converted en masse to natural gas (Correljé et al., 2003).

On the user side, the state applied additional incentives to switch. Despite the convenience of natural gas (Correljé et al., 2003; Correljé and Odell, 2000), the market value principle meant that the financial incentive to switch was limited, especially at lower volumes (Van Overbeeke, 2001). An aggressive campaign to encourage users to switch to natural gas therefore used public relations efforts portraying natural gas as clean, convenient, comfortable, and modern in the case of central heating (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). Household switches were also stimulated through more practical measures such as natural gas cooking courses, rebates for exchanging coal or oil-stoves for natural gas equipment, and a subsidised conversion campaign, which adjusted city gas equipment so that it could burn natural gas, which had a different caloric value (Schippers and Verbong, 2000). Domestic users therefore adopted gas fairly enthusiastically.

As the natural gas system grew, it was subject to political lock-in due to the revenue it provided: the state recouped 70 per cent of all profits from the gas extraction (Figure 3). These were allocated to a special buffer fund intended to strengthen the economy (Correljé et al., 2003). This incentivised the state to continue supporting the expansion of the natural gas system, for example by authorising offshore gas drilling in 1965 (Correljé et al., 2003).

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Figure 3: Dutch state revenues from the natural gas sector, 1960-2015 (Bundelmann, 2013, p. 99).

4.2.2 Declining coal regimeThe domestic coal industry offered limited resistance to the transition plan. While coal companies made efforts to combat the government’s natural gas marketing efforts, for example through the “cosy coal” campaign (Schippers and Verbong, 2000), these efforts did not get very much traction and were weakened by the fact that the coal industry was in structural decline. The last mines were closed by the early 1970s (Correljé et al., 2003).Resistance by incumbents was further limited by a government strategy of compensation. Coal mining company DSM, for example, was given a stake in the new system in return for its role in the negotiations with NAM (Correljé and Verbong, 2004). Other coal mining companies quickly switched to the natural gas business of their own accord (Correljé et al., 2003). Coal and city gas workers were also compensated with economic development projects in coal mining regions, and retraining schemes for city gas workers to maintain natural gas equipment (Raven and Verbong, 2007). The government took a more aggressive approach to some other incumbent actors such as city gas networks, who were simply side-lined from negotiations (Van Overbeeke, 2001). The result was that many business actors were turned from potential adversaries into allies.

4.3 ConclusionThe critical event which made the Dutch transition to natural gas energy possible was the 1962 agreement between NAM and the Dutch state to encourage a national transition to natural gas, which created a united front between the state and private industry. This agreement in turn depended in turn on preceding developments which influenced the interests and opportunities of state and industry actors. The very existence of NAM, for example, depended on the country’s oil

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industry and the principles established in the 1954 agreement. The state was predisposed in favour of the agreement by its interest in maximising revenue, while industry’s interests were shaped by Exxon’s bad American experiences. And most dramatically, the discovery of Slochteren in 1959 provided a key focusing event.

Once the 1962 agreement was signed, its implementation was facilitated by the collapse of the structural Dutch coal industry, which reduced its resistance to the transition plan. Resistance was also reduced by the Dutch government policy of compensating incumbents. Finally, the market value principle and the fact that the Dutch public were used to high energy prices facilitated mass public acceptance.

5. Danish transition from oil-based heating to district heating (1945-1990)

District heating grew steadily in Danish cities throughout the early twentieth century, reaching 30 per cent of the domestic heating market by the early 1970s, though by this time cheap foreign oil had become the dominant form of heating in Denmark (State of Green, 2016; Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). This oil dependence meant that the 1973 oil crisis had severe impacts, forcing the Danish government to debate ways to improve its energy security. It took several years of debate and technological development, as well as a second energy crisis in 1979, to close down this debate in favour of district heating, which was followed by policies that radically accelerated its expansion (Figure 4). This prolonged debate necessitates a slightly different structure for this section, in which the incumbents in the acceleration phase are not just the oil industry (a sector where very little happened), but also the initially dominant alternative of a nuclear-electric heating system.

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Figure 4: Total energy consumed by different kinds of heating appliances consumed by Danish households and industries, 1966-2005. Note that while this is the best data available going back this far, it is not a perfect comparison of the transition to district heating. It does not account for all sources of heating, or for all uses of the various fuel types (natural gas can also be used for cooking, for example). Data from Statistics Denmark (2016a)

5.1 Formative phase (1945-1973)Technological and business developments in district heating were slow prior to 1973, while the oil-based heating system continued to entrench itself. This was due to increasing prosperity, and the prevalence of larger, one-family houses typically fitted with oil boilers (Johansen, 1986; Jones, 1999). At the same time, however, a strong district heating system emerged at the niche level.

5.1.1 Incumbent oil heating and electricity regimesPrior to 1960, most Danes heated their homes with domestic resources such as wood, coal, and turf (Johansen, 1986). During the 1960s, however, increasing wealth and suburbanisation encouraged the growing middle class to purchase one-family homes or larger flats, which were increasingly

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heated using individual boilers burning cheap foreign oil (Johansen, 1986; Jones, 1999). This, combined with the increasing use of oil for industry and electricity production, meant that by 1973 foreign oil and coal accounted for more than 90 per cent of Danish energy consumption (Hawkey, 2016).

The state was largely comfortable with this state of affairs, and did not have any significant energy policy during this period, nor did civil society actors pay much attention to energy issues (Hawkey, 2017; Lockwood, 2017). Energy consumption was influenced by second-order effects of other policies, however, as post-war housing policies accelerated the housing boom (Jones, 1999), while municipalities were given more control over local energy production and consumption (Jones, 1986).There were important industrial changes in the electricity sector, however, as wartime interventions consolidated the electricity industry (Eikeland and Inderberg, 2016), allowing many generating systems to make use of combined heat and power, which in turn created a ready supply of district heat (Figure 6). Small power companies and cooperatives managed to survive this change by switching from production to distribution. This ensured that the electricity system remained amenable to local government intervention (Eikeland and Inderberg, 2016).

5.1.2 Emerging district heating nicheDespite the prevalence of individual oil boilers, district heating systems established a strong foothold during this period, being used by 30 per cent of Danish homes by the 1970s. These systems were subject to two ownership structures: Urban district heating systems were owned by municipal utilities, while rural communities were served by smaller cooperatives, which had emerged as a by-product of agricultural reconstruction in the 1960s (Eikeland and Inderberg, 2016; Lockwood, 2015). Both of these business structures enjoyed stable financing from kommunekredit, loans backed by municipal government (Herborn, 2017). The cooperatives also had a strong business network in the form of the Danish Association of Rural Utilities (Lockwood et al., 2017).

This created strong conditions for the growth and stabilisation of the district heating industry, and particularly for dedicated district heating plants (Figure 5). It also established that district heating would be run on a non-profit basis, which contributed to the system’s public acceptability.

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Figure 5: District heating from combined heat and power and dedicated district heating plants, 1966-1972. Data from Statbank Denmark (2017).

5.2 Acceleration phase (1973-1990)The acceleration phase, occurring after the 1973 oil crisis, includes two sub-phases: a period of debate between a district heating based heating system or a nuclear-electric system,2 and a second phase during which the district heating system, its advocates having won the debate, was rapidly expanded after the second 1979 oil crisis.

Both phases were influenced by macro-political contexts, including Denmark’s “negotiated economy”, in which the deliberate manipulation of behaviour through public policies was considered politically acceptable (Johansen, 1986; Østergard, 2006; Pedersen, 2006), a tradition of cooperative business, and a collectivist outlook which favoured public infrastructures (Jones, 1986). By the 1970s, this was also influenced by the increasing prominence of environmental concerns among the country’s youth.

5.2.1 Expanding district heating systemThe 1973 energy crisis rapidly undermined the government’s laissez-faire approach towards energy, and established a new policy paradigm that saw the government become more willing to intervene in energy markets to ensure energy security. This was first signalled in 1975 by the creation of the Danish Energy Agency (Hawkey, 2016), and enjoyed considerable discursive and political support

2 While Danish natural gas from the North Sea was theoretically another possible alternative, as it had been discovered by 1973, the first industrial drilling did not occur until 1983, too late to make a big difference in the Danish domestic heating market (Statistics Denmark, 2016a).

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(Klok et al., 2006). The establishment of new policy strategies (Hall, 1993), however, proved to be more contentious, leading to debates over how to wean the country off of oil heating. Proposals for district heating had to compete with an alternative proposal to supply heat using nuclear power and heat pumps. District heating and combined heat and power schemes were initially politically marginal, enjoying the support of activist organisations, academics and some left-wing politicians, but not of the reigning government, which preferred the nuclear-electric plan (Blegaa et al., 1977; Johansen, 1986).

This meant that the Danish energy mix between 1973 and 1979 was complex, contested, and, at times, contradictory. Despite the official government support for a nuclear-electric heating system, some policies nevertheless supported the growth of district heating and combined heat and power. At the time of its creation, for example, the Danish Energy Agency already had a mandate to have district heating meet 60 per cent of heat demand by 2020. The 1976 Electricity Supply Act also stipulated that all new non-renewable electricity production had to be combined heat and power (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014; Hawkey, 2016). District heating had an advantage over nuclear power and heat pumps during this contested period, because its infrastructure could more easily be developed through piecemeal developments, such as a series of CHP plants built in the late 1970s which provided a ready supply of hot water for district heating networks (Blegaa et al., 1977; Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). By 1980, 40 per cent of houses were connected to district heating, while combined heat and power continued to increase its share of both heat and electricity production (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). These technical developments were further supported by discursive and political developments, as nuclear power became increasingly unpalatable, while district heating was seen as cheap, clean, and in tune with Denmark’s cooperative tradition.

The second sub-phase began in 1979, initiated by a renewed sense of urgency created by a second energy crisis, combined with the increasing political and technical viability of a large-scale district heating system, relative to nuclear power. This contributed to the passage of 1979 Heat Supply Act, which placed government support explicitly behind district heating and imposed aggressive policy measures to accelerate the transition. The Act established zones designated for district heating (State of Green, 2016), required municipalities to produce heating plans, and granted broad legal powers to enforce them (Hawkey, 2016). It also established strong consumer protections: all district heating was to be carried out on a non-profit basis, and consumers were given representation in the management of district heating companies (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). The wider policy mix also included energy taxes, passed in the 1980s for fiscal reasons, which made oil less competitive with district heating (Klok et al., 2006), as well as new policies which established a national energy plan, required some buildings to connect to district heating networks, and forebode electric heating in new buildings (Klok et al., 2006). Lower-level policies were also employed. The Danish Energy Agency's technological catalogues, for example, provided crucial technical knowledge to municipalities and heat cooperatives (State of Green, 2016).

The political closure and policy interventions accelerated the transition to district heating without much public investment. Because many policies were regulatory or coercive, users were more important for this transition as political constituents than as consumers. Their support for the system was secured by the appeal of district heating as a cheap, convenient, and reliable source of energy (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014; Johansen, 1986), and by the aforementioned consumer protections (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). There is also some evidence that users took active

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responsibility for conserving energy. Average energy used for heating per household declined significantly during the 1980s, regardless of whether they used district heating or oil boilers (Statistics Denmark 2016a, 2016b). This might suggest popular enthusiasm for energy efficiency, which would have shored up political support even for the more coercive policies.

The transition also benefited from coordination between the government and organizational entities. The non-profit cooperatives that managed district heating already had strong linkages with municipalities, in some cases being run directly by local government (Hadjilambrinos, 2000). Financiers benefited from stable policies and strong mandates that ensured predictable growth of the system, as well as low-risk government-backed loans, which made district heating a very safe investment, allowing interest rates consistently below 1 per cent (Chittum and Østergaard, 2014). This in turn lowered the cost of district heat for consumers (Danish Energy Agency, 2012). Finally, an industry which grew up to supply district heating equipment and expertise eventually became a profitable export industry, which added further technological and political momentum to the system (Johansen, 1986).

5.2.2 Remains of oil heating and competing systemsThere was little to no incumbent regime to resist the policies and transition to district heating. Large utilities were often public, and the lack of a domestic oil industry in the 1970s meant that there were no powerful industrial actors to defend oil (Lockwood, 2015). Greater resistance came from political incumbents and actors within the electricity industry, who promoted the nuclear-electric system over district heating (Eikeland and Inderberg, 2016). The first energy plan, published in 1976, placed primary emphasis on natural gas and nuclear power plants to replace oil heating (Blegaa et al., 1977; Eikeland and Inderberg, 2016). Many elements of the Danish policy mix during the mid-to-late 1970s, such as an energy research programme on heat pumps in 1974, were aimed at the development of this system (Nyborg and Røpke, 2015).

The nuclear-electric system, however, had several structural disadvantages. Firstly, it did not have the support of a strong incumbent regime. Utilities were uninterested in supporting nuclear power due to the commercial risk it posed: only one of the country's two large electricity companies would have been given the right to operate nuclear plants (Lockwood, 2015). Nuclear power also had political and discursive liabilities, being increasingly associated with "alienation, concentration [of power], and the risk of sabotage" (Nyborg and Røpke, 2015, p. 169). This led to a strong anti-nuclear political coalition. Finally, nuclear power was an all-or-nothing proposition due to the size and expense of nuclear power plants. A nuclear-electric heating system therefore made very little actual progress, while the district heating system scored several small victories during the 1970s. All of these developments helped create an opening for district heating.

5.3 ConclusionThe critical event that provided the conditions for accelerated transition was the 1973 oil shock. While this created an overwhelming demand for policies to enhance energy security, however, there was a prolonged debate over how best to achieve this. District heating’s victory in this debate was influenced by the existence of stabilized district heating systems, as well as the absence of industry actors to champion nuclear power. This was enhanced by cultural factors, such as an affinity for cooperative industry, communal infrastructure, and a widespread public acceptance of government planning. Finally, district heating was able to gradually develop momentum during the 1970s, while a

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similar process would have been impossible for nuclear power due to the high capital and political costs. Once closure was reached in favour of district heating, implementation was made easier due to public enthusiasm for energy conservation and environmental policies, as well as the lack of a domestic fossil fuel industry. These facilitated the drafting and passage of aggressive, targeted legislation that effectively accelerated the transition.

6. Analysis

6.1 Intervention strategies

With regard to the first research question, the Dutch and Danish governments used multiple specific policies to accelerate the respective transitions, thus confirming the importance of policy mixes. The Dutch transition was facilitated by a top-down plan, negotiated with large firms, to reshape the country’s entire energy system by dedicating large resources and coordinating many kinds of policy interventions. The rapid and coordinated construction of infrastructure was complemented by public relations and marketing campaigns and a programme of price fixing to ensure consumer and business interest; a refit programme for home appliances; and a series of compensation schemes, both for coal companies such as DSM and for coal workers. These measures were highly interdependent. The compensation scheme for DSM, for example, was also a key point in the government’s negotiation process with NAM, while the refitting of consumer appliances was also leveraged to compensate city gas workers. In the Dutch case, then, a rapid consensus on the best path forward enabled the government to transform the country’s energy infrastructure with a highly coordinated policy programme. Similar approaches might be viable for low-carbon transitions in cases where a very high level of political consensus coexists with a high level of private-sector support.

The Danish transition shows a different set of policy mechanisms, due to extra time taken to reach consensus. In the first part of the acceleration phase, district heating policies established preconditions for expanded district heating networks, for example through the Danish Energy Agency’s technical advice or the Electricity Supply Act’s provisions that ensured a reliable supply of waste heat from power plants. After closure was reached around district heating, however, the policies took on a more coercive tone, with the Danish state making wide use of both regulatory mechanisms and local government bodies to accelerate the transition in different local contexts. This proved highly effective, with strong consumer protections making the more coercive policies politically acceptable. This strategy was made possible largely by the general attitude of acceptance to government regulations that existed on the part of the Danish population at this time.

Using the three analytical policy approaches discussed in section 2.2, Table 2 summarises the main policies used by the Dutch and Danish governments to accelerate the respective transitions. This summary confirms the suggestions by Meadowcroft (2009) and Geels et al. (2015) traditional policy tools (regulation, planning, public investment, subsidies, and tax-based instruments) are important in later transition phases. Policies for acceleration thus differ in important ways from the policy mechanisms proposed by TIS, SNM, and TM, which emphasize experimentation, learning-by-doing, participatory visioning, inclusive network building. Some of these policy mechanisms were still present in both cases, but mainly in the early formative phase. These policy mechanisms helped to create the preconditions for acceleration (e.g. by stabilizing the niche-innovation and building social

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networks), but did not really drive acceleration, which occurred as a result of more direct and large-scale interventions.

Classic steering (top-down) Market model (bottom-up)

Interactive network governance

Dutch natural gas transition

- Top-down planning, leading to highly coordinated gas conversion program- Public infrastructure investments- Coal mines closure decision (including compensation schemes)- State-led public relations campaign (to convince consumers)

- Price setting (to make natural gas-based heating more attractive than alternatives, especially at higher use volumes)- Subsidies for refitting consumer appliances and rebates for exchanging coal or oil-stoves for natural gas equipment

- Negotiation in closed, corporatist policy networks (NAM, DSM) to develop top-down plan

Danish district heating (DH) transition

- Regulations (1976 Electricity Supply Act, 1979 Heat Supply Act) prescribing the use of certain technologies (CHP, DH) to electricity companies and municipalities.- Regulations ensuring consumer representation on DH company boards and mandating DH operation on non-profit basis (to protect consumers)- National energy plan (in 1980s) requiring municipalities to connect certain buildings to connect to DH

- Cheap loans for DH construction, backed by public authorities- Energy taxes (in 1980s) that made oil-based heating less competitive than DH

- Creation of Danish Energy Agency (1975), which aggregated knowledge from on-the-ground implementation experiences and disseminated that to stakeholders- Unplanned public controversy (1973-1979) over future heating options: electric heat pumps (and nuclear power) versus DH

Table 2: Main policy instruments that accelerated transitions in both cases

6.2 Conditions for deliberate acceleration of transitions While informative, the above discussion of specific policies provides only a superficial account of what can be learned from these case studies. To deepen our understanding, we also analyse the conditions under which these interventions could be introduced. We first identify several structural or distal conditions, based on MLP-categories as discussed in section 2.2. To complement this with a more proximate agentic analysis, we then also identify several social conditions (i.e. relations between policymakers and other social groups).

6.2.1 Structural conditions related to the Multi-Level PerspectiveThe first structural condition in both cases is the absence or relative weakness of an incumbent regime that might otherwise have opposed the transition. In Denmark, this was due to the lack of a domestic oil industry, and lukewarm support for nuclear power from utilities. In the Netherlands, this was due to the structural weaknesses of the coal industry, which was already eroded before the transition to gas-based heating. Nevertheless, the government decided to compensate regime

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players (by giving them a role in the transition or retraining employees). Because regime actors can effectively resist transitions (Geels, 2014; Meadowcroft, 2009), this compensation strategy smoothened the shift, alleviated socio-economic consequences, and lessened opposition.

The second structural condition in both cases was the existence of a proven and well-developed niche alternative towards which actors could reorient. In Denmark, this took the form of a stable but subaltern district heating system accounting for 30 per cent of all households before 1973, while in the Netherlands this took the form of experience with coal-based city gas and with natural gas in isolated settings such as in Coevorden (Correljé et al., 2003). The development of these alternatives in the decades before acceleration implies that SNM, TIS and TM are still important in early phases of transitions, even when these approaches are not in themselves sufficient to drive acceleration.

Thirdly, both acceleration processes were the result of a focusing event. In Denmark this was the 1973 oil crisis (a landscape shock), while in the Netherlands it was the bonanza created by the Slochteren gas field discovery. These events rapidly created a consensus in favour of moving away from the status quo. This fits well with the literature on policy paradigm shifts (Blyth, 2002; Hall, 1993), which often describes crises, stressors, or contradictions playing a key role in changing government policy. Our findings indicate that these shocks not only take the form of a crisis, as in the Danish case, but can also occur as an opportunity, as in the Dutch case (Correljé et al., 2003).

6.2.2 Proximate social conditionsIn terms of social networks, the deliberate acceleration policies were enabled by the following conditions. Firstly, in both cases there was a strong consensus and united front between policymakers and the business actors responsible for developing the new system. In Denmark, this occurred because many of the business actors responsible for district heating were managed by municipal governments that were responsible for accelerating the transition. In the Netherlands, a contract was negotiated in advance between the state and business actors, who shared economic motivations. This fits with the literature describing the ways policy and business actors can influence and constrain each other, the importance of involving businesses in transitions, and the power of stable public-private alignments such as "iron triangles" (Geels et al., 2016; Hayden, 2002).

Secondly, in both cases there was a lack of strong user opposition. In Denmark, this took the form of active enthusiasm for the new system, while Dutch energy consumers were willing to go along with the transition because they benefited in a small way and because they were used to high energy prices. The lack of strong user opposition is important, because an unhappy user base can derail a transition (Wyatt, 2003; Kahma and Matschoss, 2017). It is thus not necessarily the presence of user enthusiasm that is important here (although that obviously helps for deliberate acceleration), as the absence of active resistance.

Thirdly, wider social acceptance was important in both cases, and policymakers implemented specific policies to enhance public acceptability, often through deliberate market intervention. In the Netherlands, this took the form of price fixing, through the ‘market value principle’, as well as providing retraining schemes for displaced coal miners. The Danish approach was to mandate that all district heating infrastructure be run on a not-for-profit basis.

6.3 Implications of case-specific differences for transition patterns

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Both cases also had specific differences which influenced transition patterns in theoretically interesting ways. One interesting difference is the nature of the focusing event. In the Netherlands, a big niche-related opportunity galvanized the transition. While there were disagreements on how best to develop the Slochteren natural gas field, it was relatively easy to reach consensus on the general direction of travel (that it should somehow be exploited on a large scale). In Denmark, the 1973 oil crisis was the focusing event, which generated widespread agreement about the problem and the notion that the country should transition away from oil-dependence. Nevertheless, there was considerable uncertainty and debate about which alternatives were most appealing (district heating or electric heat pumps and nuclear power). This debate about multiple pathways created uncertainty, which delayed the transition, leading to a time lag between focusing event and deliberate acceleration.

This suggests that different kinds of focusing events can lead to different kinds of transition patterns. Big opportunities have the effect of rapidly closing down debate, because they suggest a clear way forward, even if there might still be some debate over specific implementation choices. If, however, the focusing event occurs in the form of a problem, as in the Danish case, it leads to an opening up of the search for possible alternative pathways. The transition literature characterizes this as a “de-alignment and re-alignment” pathway (Geels and Schot, 2007). The 1973 oil crisis effectively de-aligned the Danish heating system, but this only allowed actors within it to agree that they did not want an oil-based heating system prone to foreign supply shocks, leaving open scope for debate over what should replace it. The subsequent debates and on-the-ground learning processes took time. Additionally, a second oil shock in 1979 was important to close down the debate and reach the consensus that underpinned the decisive policy actions that accelerated the transition.

A second, related, contrast is that a different institutional mechanism supported the transition in each case. In the Netherlands, the high degree of consensus about the desirability of the natural gas transition facilitated a top-down technocratic process, while Denmark adopted a more flexible approach, based on learning processes and broader stakeholder debates after the 1973 oil shock. The Danish government’s decisive acceleration through the 1979 Heat Supply Act was thus enabled by preceding processes that had prepared the ground. These different steering mechanisms also related to pre-existing governance styles. Top-down interventions in the Dutch case were possible because the central planning approach was widely accepted in the immediate post-war decades. The ‘bottom-up’, participatory approach in the Danish transition was shaped by pre-existing traditions and discourses that made the public more accepting of communal utilities and municipal socialism.

Thirdly, the different governance styles also implied different roles for users and discourse in the transitions. In the Dutch case, users were largely passive and the object of policy instruments: financial incentives aimed to encourage individuals to switch to gas heating, while discourse, in the form of public relations campaigns, was used as a policy tool to shape consumer preferences. In Denmark, the 1973 oil crisis triggered more active user engagement (e.g. through energy conservation) and heated public debates against nuclear power (which was initially the government’s preferred option) and for cooperative solutions (like district heating). This shows that there are multiple potential paths to get social buy-in to the new system, some of which might be more viable than others in certain political contexts.

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A fourth difference concerns the role of incumbent firms and new entrants. The new entrants in the Dutch heating transition (Exxon, Shell) were not start-ups or grassroots actors, but incumbent actors from a neighbouring regime (oil/gas). This deviates from the common pattern in the Multi-Level Perspective and evolutionary economics, which tend adopt a traditional new entrant versus incumbent dichotomy. This pattern also helps explain the speed of the transition, because the involvement of the powerful oil/gas industry introduced strong technical capabilities, planning skills and deep financial pockets. Interestingly, the Dutch policy approach also compensated losing incumbents (coal industry), which reduced resistance against the transition. The Danish case was different in the sense that local municipalities and cooperatives were the new entrants driving the transition, which is closer to the typical SNM and MLP storyline. But these new entrants did not struggle against incumbent firms, because of the lack of a Danish domestic oil industry, which is one reason the transition proceeded quite quickly after the government decisively committed to district heating after 1979.

7. Conclusion

This paper has made two contributions to the debate on deliberately accelerated transitions. Firstly, with regard to intervention policies, we have shown that policy approaches like transition management, strategic niche management and technological innovations are not sufficient to accelerate transitions. While these policy approaches may be important in early transition phases, both our cases showed that diffusion and acceleration involved traditional policy instruments like planning, regulation, subsidies, public investments and taxes. To understand diffusion and acceleration, this finding means that transition scholars should not only emphasize instruments from the interactive network governance approach, but also engage with traditional policy instruments from ‘market model’ and ‘classic steering’ approaches.

Secondly, to mitigate against voluntarism, we also identified the conditions under which policymakers can implement these acceleration policies. Building on the Multi-Level perspective and our two cases, we identify the following structural conditions: a weak or destabilized regime (which reduces opposition to acceleration policies), the presence of a stabilized niche-innovation, and a focusing event (landscape shock or sudden niche opportunity) that galvanizes reorientation from the regime to the niche. Bases on our case analysis, we also identify more proximate, agentic conditions: support from business for the transition and acceleration policies, limited user opposition, and social acceptance.

Although our research was exploratory, the similarities between both cases, combined with the theoretical interpretations in section 6, suggest that our findings are likely to have wider relevance beyond the two cases. They also point to a few broader lessons for the deliberate acceleration of transitions.

The first lesson is the importance of both structural and agentic factors in deliberate acceleration. In each case, contextual developments, such as the absence of an oil industry or the Danish tradition of cooperatives, played a critical role in setting the stage for an accelerated transition. However, they had to be strategically exploited by deliberate alliances between policymakers and other groups. Strategies to do this were diverse, including market interventions and price fixing, subsidies, regulations, and compensation schemes. This speaks to the agency and structure debate in the

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multi-level perspective (Geels, 2011; Smith et al., 2010), showing that multi-level transitions can be amenable to the deliberate intervention of policymakers, but that this agency is most effective when coupled with structural developments.

Another general lesson is that deliberate acceleration of transitions relates not just to policies and political processes, but also to other socio-technical dimensions such as user preferences, discourses, industry, and the technologies themselves. Some of these were on-going developments that policymakers capitalised on, while others were deliberately encouraged, e.g. the Dutch policymakers’ decision to compensate regime players (who might otherwise have opposed the transition) or the Danish consumer protection policies designed to reassure users.

A third lesson comes from the differences between the cases, which show the importance of different kinds of shocks. The transitions literature typically emphasizes negative landscape shocks that cause problems for incumbent regimes (e.g. wars, economic crises, oil shocks). The role of the Slochteren discovery in the Dutch case, however, illustrates that shocks can also be positive, creating a sudden new opportunity at the niche-level. Positive shocks, as discussed in section 6.2, can allow different transition patterns and interventions than negative shocks, tending to close down transition pathways, and therefore leading to faster implementation.

This research has some weaknesses, which suggest avenues for future research. Firstly, while the heating sector, due to its very high stakes, is a useful critical case study, there are other sectors, such as transport or electricity, that have comparable or even higher stakes, and which might therefore provide a more difficult context for deliberate acceleration. Further case studies of accelerated transitions in these sectors would be worthwhile. Another weakness is the reliance on secondary sources. A more detailed historical account, using primary sources to investigate the details of political and business negotiations would be a useful complement to our research. Thirdly, although the introduction suggested that deliberate acceleration is especially important for time-sensitive problems like climate change, generalization of our insights for low-carbon transitions needs to be done with care, to take account of specificities like the collective good nature of a stable climate and the multiplicity of low-carbon transition pathways. Finally, both cases occurred in relatively small countries with traditions of interventionist governments. Research of accelerated transitions in larger, market-oriented countries, such as in the United Kingdom or United States, would therefore be valuable.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK) Energy Program Grant EP/K011790/1 “Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand,” which has funded the research that presented in this paper.

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