Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy

Disruptive innovations are seen to have three core features: 1. They occupy a niche that expands into being a major disruption to a technological system; 2. They grow exponentially and are thus very surprising in their disruption and 3. They create stranded assets. This paper shows how renewable ene...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Green, Jemma, Newman, Peter
Format: Journal Article
Published: Earthscan Ltd. 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/54012
_version_ 1848759282928975872
author Green, Jemma
Newman, Peter
author_facet Green, Jemma
Newman, Peter
author_sort Green, Jemma
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Disruptive innovations are seen to have three core features: 1. They occupy a niche that expands into being a major disruption to a technological system; 2. They grow exponentially and are thus very surprising in their disruption and 3. They create stranded assets. This paper shows how renewable energy with battery storage has the three core features of a disruptive innovation, and predicts that the number of fossil fuel stranded assets are thus likely to increase with the rise of renewable energy generation. Forecasts for the share of renewable capacity in global energy demand will go beyond current estimates, due to the introduction of battery storage and decline in retail renewable electricity prices, and could account for 100% of global energy demand in a number of different scenarios by 2050. We find that renewables and storage can be characterised as disruptive innovations and have the potential to change energy systems dramatically between now and 2050.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:57:25Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-54012
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:57:25Z
publishDate 2017
publisher Earthscan Ltd.
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-540122018-08-06T06:59:17Z Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy Green, Jemma Newman, Peter Disruptive innovations are seen to have three core features: 1. They occupy a niche that expands into being a major disruption to a technological system; 2. They grow exponentially and are thus very surprising in their disruption and 3. They create stranded assets. This paper shows how renewable energy with battery storage has the three core features of a disruptive innovation, and predicts that the number of fossil fuel stranded assets are thus likely to increase with the rise of renewable energy generation. Forecasts for the share of renewable capacity in global energy demand will go beyond current estimates, due to the introduction of battery storage and decline in retail renewable electricity prices, and could account for 100% of global energy demand in a number of different scenarios by 2050. We find that renewables and storage can be characterised as disruptive innovations and have the potential to change energy systems dramatically between now and 2050. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/54012 10.1080/20430795.2016.1265410 Earthscan Ltd. restricted
spellingShingle Green, Jemma
Newman, Peter
Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title_full Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title_fullStr Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title_full_unstemmed Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title_short Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
title_sort disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/54012