On the design of system transitions Is Transition Management in the energy domain feasible?

Abstract

The primary objective of Transition Management appears to be dasiato manage transitions towards sustainability.psila The emerging body-of-knowledge on system transitions to date remains largely descriptive, however. We propose a research agenda to develop a prescriptive system transition body-of-knowledge, which eventually will provide handles for policy makers to push and pull transitions. This agenda is developed by focusing on energy systems. We conjecture it is always socio-technical systems that are the subject of transition. We define a system transition as a structural change in both technical and social subsystems. We conclude that shared definitions must be developed of indicators of sustainability performance of systems in transition. Secondly, an understanding and recognition of the socio-technical design space is required. The design space for energy systems includes technological structure and content, policy, regulation and market design and social innovation. The combination and interrelation of these must be recognized and its use suitably underpinned, for example by exploratory simulation models and games that would allow ex-ante testing of transition policies and management.