IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/37602.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth dynamics of energy technologies: using historical patterns to validate low carbon scenarios

Author

Listed:
  • Wilson, Charlie

Abstract

Historical growth dynamics of energy technologies reveal a consistent relationship between the extent to which a technology’s installed capacity grows and the time duration of that growth. This extent – duration relationship is remarkably consistent across both supply-side and demand-side technologies, and both old and new energy technologies. Consequently, it can be used as a means of validating future scenarios of energy technology growth under carbon constraints. This validation methodology is tested on the extents and durations of growth for a range of low carbon technologies in scenarios generated by the MESSAGE energy system model which has been widely used by the IPCC. The key finding is that low carbon technology growth in the scenarios appears generally conservative relative to what has been evidenced historically. This is counterintuitive given the extremely rapid growth rates of certain low carbon technologies under tight carbon constraints. Reasons for the apparent scenario conservatism are explored. Parametric conservatism in the underlying energy system model seems the most likely explanation.

Suggested Citation

  • Wilson, Charlie, 2010. "Growth dynamics of energy technologies: using historical patterns to validate low carbon scenarios," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 37602, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:37602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37602/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Leonardo Bursztyn & David Hemous, 2012. "The Environment and Directed Technical Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 131-166, February.
    2. Modis, Theodore, 1994. "Determination of the Uncertainties in S-Curve Logistic Fits," OSF Preprints n53pd, Center for Open Science.
    3. Grubler, Arnulf & Nakicenovic, Nebojsa & Victor, David G., 1999. "Dynamics of energy technologies and global change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 247-280, May.
    4. Nic Rivers & Mark Jaccard, 2005. "Combining Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Energy-Economy Modeling Using Discrete Choice Methods," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 83-106.
    5. Utterback, James M & Abernathy, William J, 1975. "A dynamic model of process and product innovation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 3(6), pages 639-656, December.
    6. Gritsevskyi, Andrii & Nakicenovi, Nebojsa, 2000. "Modeling uncertainty of induced technological change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(13), pages 907-921, November.
    7. Ma, Tieju & Nakamori, Yoshiteru, 2009. "Modeling technological change in energy systems – From optimization to agent-based modeling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 873-879.
    8. Clarke, Leon & Weyant, John & Edmonds, Jae, 2008. "On the sources of technological change: What do the models assume," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 409-424, March.
    9. Shilpa Rao, Ilkka Keppo and Keywan Riahi, 2006. "Importance of Technological Change and Spillovers in Long-Term Climate Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 123-140.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fredrik Hedenus & Stefan Wirsenius & Daniel Johansson, 2014. "The importance of reduced meat and dairy consumption for meeting stringent climate change targets," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 79-91, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charlie Wilson:, 2010. "Growth dynamics of energy technologies: using historical patterns to validate low carbon scenarios," GRI Working Papers 32, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    2. C. Wilson & A. Grubler & N. Bauer & V. Krey & K. Riahi, 2013. "Future capacity growth of energy technologies: are scenarios consistent with historical evidence?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 381-395, May.
    3. Michael Grubb & Jean-Francois Mercure & Pablo Salas & Rutger-Jan Lange & Ida Sognnaes, 2018. "Systems Innovation, Inertia and Pliability: A mathematical exploration with implications for climate change abatement," Working Papers EPRG 1808, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    4. Rout, Ullash K. & Blesl, Markus & Fahl, Ulrich & Remme, Uwe & Voß, Alfred, 2009. "Uncertainty in the learning rates of energy technologies: An experiment in a global multi-regional energy system model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4927-4942, November.
    5. Kahouli-Brahmi, Sondes, 2008. "Technological learning in energy-environment-economy modelling: A survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 138-162, January.
    6. Criqui, P. & Mima, S. & Menanteau, P. & Kitous, A., 2015. "Mitigation strategies and energy technology learning: An assessment with the POLES model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PA), pages 119-136.
    7. Adrien Vogt-Schilb & St�phane Hallegatte & Christophe de Gouvello, 2015. "Marginal abatement cost curves and the quality of emission reductions: a case study on Brazil," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(6), pages 703-723, November.
    8. Charlie Wilson & Arnulf Grubler, 2011. "Lessons from the history of technological change for clean energy scenarios and policies," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(3), pages 165-184, August.
    9. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe, 2013. "The monopolistic polluter under environmental liability law: incentives for abatement and R&D," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(3), pages 753-770, March.
    10. Farrell, Alexander E. & Keith, David W. & Corbett, James J., 2003. "A strategy for introducing hydrogen into transportation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(13), pages 1357-1367, October.
    11. Bhardwaj, Chandan & Axsen, Jonn & McCollum, David, 2022. "Which “second-best” climate policies are best? Simulating cost-effective policy mixes for passenger vehicles," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Wand, Robert & Leuthold, Florian, 2011. "Feed-in tariffs for photovoltaics: Learning by doing in Germany?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 4387-4399.
    13. Bibas, Ruben & Méjean, Aurélie & Hamdi-Cherif, Meriem, 2015. "Energy efficiency policies and the timing of action: An assessment of climate mitigation costs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PA), pages 137-152.
    14. Ciarli, Tommaso & Savona, Maria, 2019. "Modelling the Evolution of Economic Structure and Climate Change: A Review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 51-64.
    15. Rout, Ullash K. & Fahl, Ulrich & Remme, Uwe & Blesl, Markus & Voß, Alfred, 2009. "Endogenous implementation of technology gap in energy optimization models--a systematic analysis within TIMES G5 model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2814-2830, July.
    16. Graham, Paul W. & Williams, David J., 2003. "Optimal technological choices in meeting Australian energy policy goals," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 691-712, November.
    17. Elia, A. & Taylor, M. & Ó Gallachóir, B. & Rogan, F., 2020. "Wind turbine cost reduction: A detailed bottom-up analysis of innovation drivers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    18. Gosens, Jorrit & Hedenus, Fredrik & Sandén, Björn A., 2017. "Faster market growth of wind and PV in late adopters due to global experience build-up," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 267-278.
    19. Jin, Wei & Zhang, ZhongXiang, "undated". "Product Homogeneity, Knowledge Spillovers, and Innovation: Why Energy Sector is Perplexed by a Slow Pace of Technological Progress," Working Papers 249504, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    20. Moglianesi, Andrea & Keppo, Ilkka & Lerede, Daniele & Savoldi, Laura, 2023. "Role of technology learning in the decarbonization of the iron and steel sector: An energy system approach using a global-scale optimization model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:37602. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.