The Knowledge Mobility of Renewable Energy Technology

TL;DR

This paper examines how the characteristics of knowledge bases, specifically analyticity and cumulativeness, influence the spatial development of various renewable energy technologies, highlighting the need for tailored regional policies.

Contribution

It empirically evaluates the relationship between knowledge base features and RET development, and systematically characterizes knowledge bases for 14 different RETs.

Findings

Highly analytic RETs like photovoltaics develop more widely.

Less analytic RETs such as wind turbines have limited spatial development.

Knowledge cumulativeness varies significantly across RETs.

Abstract

In the race to achieve climate goals, many governments and organizations are encouraging the local development of Renewable Energy Technology (RET). The spatial innovation dynamics of the development of a technology partly depends on the characteristics of the knowledge base on which this technology builds, in particular the analyticity and cumulativeness of knowledge. Theoretically, greater analyticity and lesser cumulativeness are positively associated with more widespread development. In this study, we first empirically evaluate these relations for general technology and then systematically determine the knowledge base characteristics for a set of 14 different RETs. We find that, while several RETs (photovoltaics, fuel-cells, energy storage) have a highly analytic knowledge base and develop more widespread, there are also important RETs (wind turbines, solar thermal, geothermal and hydro energy) for which the knowledge base is less analytic and which develop less widespread. Likewise, the technological cumulativeness tends to be lower for the former than for the latter group. This calls for regional and country-level policies to be specific for different RETs, taking for a given RET into account both the type of knowledge it builds on as well as the local presence of this knowledge.