286 E. MOE ET AL.
from elected policymakers, occasionally accumulating enough influence to
reduce politics to propagating the interests of the most powerful vested
interest groups. Thus, even if time is ripe for renewable energy, structural
change will not just happen by itself. It is only when political decisionmakers have the autonomy to pursue policies of structural change that
they may realistically go against vested interest groups to actively pursue
an energy transformation away from fossil fuels.
The petroleum bias of Norwegian energy policy in combination with
abundant hydropower explains the until recently very slow emergence of
wind power installations in Norway in a manner that dovetails with the
framework sketched out above; incumbents were blocking change and
Norway did not particularly need wind power. However, regarding subsea
cables, Norway does not easily conform to this framework, since here,
incumbents in the power sector—as in grid (Statnett) and utility companies (Statkraft the biggest among these)—are not blocking change, but
actively pushing it. Here, the existing vested interests are harbingers of
Schumpeterian creative destruction rather than stability and status quo,
completely unlike the role they have played in many other countries,
where grid companies have resisted wind power because of concerns
with intermittency whereas electric utility companies have been reluctant
because of costs (e.g., Moe 2015, 2017).
To explain when incumbents opt for change over stability, we propose
expanding the above-described vested interest framework with Kelsey’s
(2018) division of energy-political actors into four groups: winners, losers,
convertibles, and management. Winners and losers are easily defined.
They are the actors of the regular vested interest framework, and either
gain from change or indisputably lose.
The management category is not particularly relevant for our purpose. 1
Instead, the interesting category is the convertibles. According to Kelsey
(2018, p. 620), “[c]onvertible industries are industries that make
polluting products but do have the capability to switch to non-polluting
products.” Here, among others, we find the grid and utility companies.
The key issue for these is that they generate profits and run a stable electricity system, not whether the energy is derived from coal, petroleum,
nuclear, or renewables. They have (in theory) no ideological allegiances to
any specific type of energy. 2 Thus, if renewable energy is the better solution, they will switch from resisters to promoters. Ultimately, breaking
down the interests of incumbents into winners, losers, and convertibles
(and management) enables us to explain why some defend the status
from elected policymakers, occasionally accumulating enough influence to
reduce politics to propagating the interests of the most powerful vested
interest groups. Thus, even if time is ripe for renewable energy, structural
change will not just happen by itself. It is only when political decisionmakers have the autonomy to pursue policies of structural change that
they may realistically go against vested interest groups to actively pursue
an energy transformation away from fossil fuels.
The petroleum bias of Norwegian energy policy in combination with
abundant hydropower explains the until recently very slow emergence of
wind power installations in Norway in a manner that dovetails with the
framework sketched out above; incumbents were blocking change and
Norway did not particularly need wind power. However, regarding subsea
cables, Norway does not easily conform to this framework, since here,
incumbents in the power sector—as in grid (Statnett) and utility companies (Statkraft the biggest among these)—are not blocking change, but
actively pushing it. Here, the existing vested interests are harbingers of
Schumpeterian creative destruction rather than stability and status quo,
completely unlike the role they have played in many other countries,
where grid companies have resisted wind power because of concerns
with intermittency whereas electric utility companies have been reluctant
because of costs (e.g., Moe 2015, 2017).
To explain when incumbents opt for change over stability, we propose
expanding the above-described vested interest framework with Kelsey’s
(2018) division of energy-political actors into four groups: winners, losers,
convertibles, and management. Winners and losers are easily defined.
They are the actors of the regular vested interest framework, and either
gain from change or indisputably lose.
The management category is not particularly relevant for our purpose. 1
Instead, the interesting category is the convertibles. According to Kelsey
(2018, p. 620), “[c]onvertible industries are industries that make
polluting products but do have the capability to switch to non-polluting
products.” Here, among others, we find the grid and utility companies.
The key issue for these is that they generate profits and run a stable electricity system, not whether the energy is derived from coal, petroleum,
nuclear, or renewables. They have (in theory) no ideological allegiances to
any specific type of energy. 2 Thus, if renewable energy is the better solution, they will switch from resisters to promoters. Ultimately, breaking
down the interests of incumbents into winners, losers, and convertibles
(and management) enables us to explain why some defend the status