Granular technologies to accelerate decarbonization

In their Policy Forum piece "Granular technologies to accelerate decarbonization" (3 Apr 2020), Wilson and colleagues observe that more small-scale (or granular) technologies are associated with "faster diffusion, lower investment risk, faster learning, more opportunities to escape lock-in, more equitable access, more job creation, and higher social returns on innovation investment." On this basis, they advocate for increased reliance on diverse portfolios of small-scale technologies for decarbonization. However, the narrow focus on correlation between scale of technologies and multiple evaluation criteria (including their experience rates) is problematic. This is because scale itself is not the primary explanatory variable for experience rates.

As a result, their policy recommendation to focus on small-scale technologies is a bit simplistic and could have unintended negative consequences. First, it could draw away attention and resources from potentially promising large-scale technologies. In the past, some small-scale technologies, if in need for extensive customization, did not exhibit high experience rates. Meanwhile, large-scale technologies such as onshore wind power have shown significant progress and play an important role in countries' decarbonization strategies [1]. Even larger technologies such as offshore wind power are showing great promise, and could inadvertently be excluded from such strategies [2]. Second, since the authors do not go into much detail regarding the underlying mechanisms that explain the observed correlation between unit scale and experience rates (or deviations from the relationship), the authors' observation does not provide much insight on what can be done to accelerate innovation in sectors where viable small-scale technological alternatives do not exist (e.g. industry decarbonization) [3].

Thus, it is imperative that besides providing policymakers with a heuristic that increases the probability of success while designing technology portfolios for decarbonization, we also improve our understanding of the underlying factors (such as technologies' design complexity [4,5] and need for customization [6,7]) that influence technologies' experience rates [8]. Such efforts would broaden society's technology portfolios, and policymakers' toolkits to accelerate low-carbon innovation.

References
1. Williams, E., Hittinger, E., Carvalho, R., and Williams, R. (2017). Wind power costs expected to decrease due to technological progress. Energy Policy 106, 427–435.
2. Jansen, M., Staffell, I., Kitzing, L., Quoilin, S., Wiggelinkhuizen, E., Bulder, B., Riepin, I., and Müsgens, F. (2020). Offshore wind competitiveness in mature markets without subsidy. Nat. Energy 5, 614–622.
3. Reiner, D.M. (2016). Learning through a portfolio of carbon capture and storage demonstration projects. Nat. Energy 1, 15011.
4. McNerney, J., Farmer, J.D., Redner, S., and Trancik, J.E. (2011). Role of design complexity in technology improvement. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 108, 9008–13.
5. Fink, T.M.A., and Reeves, M. (2019). How much can we influence the rate of innovation? Sci. Adv. 5, eaat6107.
6. Nelson, R.R. (2003). On the uneven evolution of human know-how. Res. Policy 32, 909–922.
7. Wene, C.-O. (2008). A cybernetic perspective on technology learning. In Innovations for a low carbon economy: Economic, institutional and management approaches, T. Foxon, J. Kohler, and C. Oughton, eds. (Edward Elgar Publishing), pp. 15–46.
8. Malhotra, A., and Schmidt, T.S. (2020). Accelerating Low-Carbon Innovation. Joule, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2020.09.004.

Many research and policy papers that attempt to tackle climate change put a lot of emphasis on energy efficiency as can be noted on a recent publication (1) which suggests that relatively more granular (in terms of size) technologies offer larger potential efficiency gains. While a focus on energy efficiency is important, improvements in efficiency alone is unlikely to be sufficient enough to meet energy reduction targets (2). Besides, there are indications that some energy efficiency technologies can actually increase energy consumption instead of decreasing it (3). This is likely because the users of these technologies do not use the technologies in the way they are intended to be used, thereby compromising the energy reduction potential of the technologies. Furthermore, rebound effects – where reduction of price per unit of energy service caused by energy efficient technologies leads to users consuming more energy, has been observed to be as high as 85% in an average (4) which undermines the benefits of energy efficient technologies.

In this context, approaches to energy consumption reduction that takes into account human behaviour, psychology and culture is needed. A concept of energy culture has already been introduced (5) that examines householders' perceptions and attitudes on energy habits and practices. This concept needs to be extended further to explore research questions such as: 'What kind of cultural changes are required to encourage people to consume less energy and resources?', 'what kind of infrastructural changes are needed to encourage energy and resources saving behaviours' and 'how can energy saving policies go beyond mere cost saving financial incentives to encourage reduction in energy and resources consumption?' Unless highly transdisciplinary studies are conducted that include anthropologists, psychologists, designers, engineers and policy makers among others to tackle these research questions, energy consumption reduction targets are unlikely to be achieved.

References
1. C. Wilson et al., Science 368, 36 (2020), DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz8060.
2. L. Paoli et al., Energy 192, 116228 (2020), DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116228.
3. L. Adua et al., Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 59, 101289 (2020), DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2019.101289.
4. Z. Xin-gang et al., Journal of Cleaner Production 249, 119339 (2020), DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119339
5. H. Rau et al., Sustainable Cities and Society 54, 101983 (2020), DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2019.101983.