Spatiotemporal perspectives on urban energy transitions: a comparative study of three cities in China

Abstract

This paper develops an integrated framework to study the socio-spatial and temporal dimensions of urban energy transitions to investigate the development and spread of solar energy technologies in urban China. A comparative analysis of three case studies of solar energy transitions in the cities of Foshan (in Guangdong), Rizhao (in Shandong), and Wuxi (in Jiangsu) demonstrates the framework’s applicability. The results map each city’s trajectory towards low carbon energy. Transitions result from dynamic interactions among central and local governments, solar manufacturers, solar installers, and residents. Alongside industrial strategies, locally-specific factors have a determining influence on the eventual outcomes.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Castán Broto, V.
Mah, D.
Zhang, F.
Huang, P. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7573-715X
Lo, K.
Westman, L. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4599-4996

© The Author(s). 2020. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords:

Urban sustainability transitions; Solar technologies; Innovation pathways; Spatial embeddedness; China

Dates: