Industry and Technological Change
Industries and technologies are in constant change. To investigate these changes and how they are influenced by internal factors like innovation and external factors like policy measures, it is helpful to consider different stages in their evolution through the lens of life cycles. These life cycles typically include formative, growth, maturity, and decline phases, each with unique characteristics.
Technological and industry life cycles are influenced by many factors, including technological characteristics, the emergence of dominant designs, and policy interventions. SusTec’s research focuses on these aspects, particularly how they shape the evolution of clean energy technologies. The research also delves into how different technologies and industries follow distinct life-cycle patterns.
Key findings:
- The life cycle perspective can also be applied to technological innovation systems (TIS), which emerge, mature and eventually decline (DownloadMarkard, 2020 ). Applied to nuclear power, it helps identify that its TIS has been in (slow) decline for quite some time (external pageMarkard et al., 2020 ).
- Dominance in a specific application can lead to technological lock-ins in multi-purpose technologies, but policies can mitigate this risk (DownloadSchmidt et al., 2016 ).
- Specialized and core knowledge generation, supported by policy measures, fosters stable technological trajectories, while diverse and peripheral knowledge creation encourages technological variety (DownloadBattke et al., 2016 ).
- Solar PV and wind power exhibit different life-cycle patterns, with solar PV following mass-produced goods’ pattern and wind power mirroring complex systems, indicating a need for technology-specific policy support (DownloadHuenteler et al., 2016 ).
- In the solar PV industry, the rapid deployment and cost-decrease trends necessitated policy adjustments to address emerging socio-technical system bottlenecks, highlighting the need for dynamic policy responses in line with technological advancements (DownloadHoppmann et al., 2014 ).
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