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Sweden are one of the countries that experience growing installation volumes of Solar photovoltaic. Traditionally, in Sweden, most of the solar photovoltaic investments and policy incentives have focused on distributed photovoltaic systems. Yet, despite limited policy incentives and pessimistic forecasts, an increasing number of centralized photovoltaic parks have been commissioned and plans for substantial new capacities are communicated. Hence, the current paper investigates why. Detailed information about the underlying costs of six PV parks commissioned in 2019 and 2020 in Sweden were obtained by in-depth interviews with stakeholders and were analysed through levelized cost of electricity calculations. We conclude that the unsubsidised levelized cost of electricity ranged from 27.37 to 49.39 euro /MWh, with an average of 40.79 euro /MWh. This is lower than what are assessed for photovoltaic parks in some recent Swedish electricity system scenario studies. The main reason for the discrepancy is identified to be the assumed interest rates in the system scenario studies and the actual cost of capital experienced in the market. Comparing the levelized cost of electricity values with the market value of solar photovoltaic electricity on the spot market show that four of the six studied parks would be profitable under a merchant business model with the last years spot prices. If the downward price trend continues, Sweden may face an unexpected expansion of photovoltaic parks.

High-growth firms - also called gazelles - have the potential to create jobs and to drive regional development. Yet, there remains a lack of understanding about how to best support these companies in their growth process. Hence, the types of support offered to these firms are often misdirected and fail to provide relevant support to appropriate types of businesses. This paper focuses on one support policy aimed at support gazelles to cope with their growth challenges, namely intermediary actors, who provide matchmaking, advise and networking activities directed to gazelles. More specifically, this paper aims at identifying what challenges are encountered by gazelles and whether the support provided by intermediary actors is matching the need of support. The empirical focus of the paper is on gazelles within the construction industry and situated in the Swedish municipality Norrkoping. Findings indicate that challenges relate to recruitment, interactions with the public sector, lack of support and entrepreneurial personalities/skills. These challenges overwhelm the everyday work of entrepreneurs, who struggle to find solutions, despite the support of intermediaries. Implications for high-growth companies, intermediary actors and policymakers are discussed with the aim of finding a better match between high-growth challenges and intermediary support., Funding Agencies|Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency [49379-1]

The transition to a sustainable society requires the development of visions paving the way for socio-technical changes. In recent years, the literature on sustainable transitions and urban planning has highlighted the intermediation role of municipalities to implement international and national goals and visions at a local level. Yet, empirical research studying municipalities from the lens of the intermediation theory are sparse. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of what strategies municipalities use when intermediating between and within different scales of governance (i.e. local, national and international), and what factors influence the choice of strategies. Through semi-structured interviews and document studies, three Swedish municipalities are studied. Results show that these municipalities translate the visions through local experiments, task delegation and coalitions. Additionally, the analysis indicates that the local circumstances, rather than the relations between the local level and the higher levels of governance or the guidance of national policies, influence the choice of intermediation strategy. Particularly, whether the management approach is centralized or decentralized, result- or process-oriented, participative or exclusive, is determinant. Results also indicate that municipalities perform both top-down and bottom-up intermediation, i.e. closing the loop from the local to the national and/or international levels., Funding agencies: Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) [40642-1]

The transition to a sustainable society requires the development of visions paving the way for socio-technical changes. In recent years, the literature on sustainable transitions and urban planning has highlighted the intermediation role of municipalities to implement international and national goals and visions at a local level. Yet, empirical research studying municipalities from the lens of the intermediation theory are sparse. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of what strategies municipalities use when intermediating between and within different scales of governance (i.e. local, national and international), and what factors influence the choice of strategies. Through semi-structured interviews and document studies, three Swedish municipalities are studied. Results show that these municipalities translate the visions through local experiments, task delegation and coalitions. Additionally, the analysis indicates that the local circumstances, rather than the relations between the local level and the higher levels of governance or the guidance of national policies, influence the choice of intermediation strategy. Particularly, whether the management approach is centralized or decentralized, result- or process-oriented, participative or exclusive, is determinant. Results also indicate that municipalities perform both top-down and bottom-up intermediation, i.e. closing the loop from the local to the national and/or international levels., Funding agencies: Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) [40642-1], wedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) [project number40642-1]

The innovation process is characterized by obstacles faced both by innovation suppliers during development and by users during implementation. Although the literature has underscored the importance of collaboration, how this process occurs during implementation remains understudied. In this study, a cross-case analysis of implementation processes showed that intermediary-user collaborations are characterized by different ways of matching users' demands with intermediaries' services, different formal and informal governance mechanisms, and different implementation outcomes. We propose that these characteristics are due to the specificities of implementation and to the particularities of the intermediary-user relationship. Additionally, there are particularities of the intermediary-user collaborations that both facilitate implementation and create risks for its outcomes. We suggest that the link between the implementation outcome and the collaboration process affects user satisfaction, further investments in the technology, and learning. We conclude by drawing implications of the particularities of intermediary-user collaboration and implementation for theory, managers and further research., Funding agencies: Swedish Energy Agency within the frame of the Strategic Energy System Research programme [40642-1]

Sustainability transitions require changes in existing socio-technological systems. Authors have underlined the relevance of intermediaries in the design and implementation of policies intended to facilitate sustainability transition. Still, in the literature, the organizations or actors empirically examined as intermediaries are very diverse and the concept of intermediary is used interchangeably from context to context. There is a risk that policy makers face difficulties understanding differences among intermediaries. As a consequence, some intermediaries may be used for unfitting or unrealistic purposes. In this paper, we propose to identify the similarities and differences among intermediaries, which are relevant for policy design. We base our comparison on three main characteristics: intermediaries’ ownership and funding, their scope of action and the target recipients of their services. What emerged from our findings is that differences matter for intermediaries’ short-term or long-term orientation, actor-level or system-level focus, and demand-side or supply-side target. We end the paper by discussing the implications for policy design., SUPER, The roles of intermediaries in a transition towards a sustainable energy system

In order for the innovation process to be successful, not only do innovations need to be developed and reached the market, but, once they are available for users, they have to spread on a large scale. In the innovation literature, a complete explanation is lacking of why some innovations reach a phase of large-scale diffusion faster than others, including both actor- and system-level components. For instance, what drives and hinders adopters to decide to adopt the innovation on the actor and system levels, and how adopters who participate in the largescale diffusion handle the adoption process and the implementation of the innovation, are questions still unanswered. As a consequence, it remains unclear how the large-scale diffusion process can be facilitated and speeded up. This thesis addresses these issues by studying the case of renewable electricity (RE) innovations. After decades of technology development and improvements, RE innovations are now mature enough to be bought off-the-shelf by individuals and organizations. Yet, the pace of their large-scale diffusion is still too slow for countries to reach their RE generation targets and to limit global warming. Through qualitative and quantitative methods including 59 semi-structured interviews with adopters, project developers and experts in Sweden, France and Germany as well as a survey sent to the whole population of RE adopters in Sweden, an adopter perspective is taken in order to explore the adoption dynamics shaping large-scale diffusion of innovation. More specifically, the thesis identifies the drivers and challenges of adoption during large-scale diffusion and their impact on adoption decisions and strategies. The outcome of this work is presented in a compiling synthesis and six appended papers. Findings show that adopters are heterogeneous with regard to their characteristics, as well as to the drivers, challenges and strategies that affect their adoption processes. Depending on their perceptions, som

While cooperative organizations created with the aim to initiate, develop, and operate renewable electricity (RE) projects have received attention for their roles in the transition to a sustainable energy system, the disparities in the number of RE cooperative projects among countries suggest that institutional contexts may have an impact on their deployment. In order to systematically identify the systemic factors that impact their deployment, we use an established framework, considering the strengths and weaknesses in market structure, infrastructures, institutions, interactions, and capabilities. We compare the deployment context in Germany, France, and Sweden in order to understand which systemic factors have an impact and how they affect RE cooperative projects. Based on a review of the literature and qualitative interviews with experts in RE cooperatives, it appears that, although RE cooperative projects share some obstacles with most new entrants of RE, they are particularly exposed to a lack of financial insfrastructure, a lack of knowledge and interactions, and problems related to a lack of regulatory frameworks facilitating their deployment. Results also show that systemic factors are complementary and dependent on each other; lowering one barrier lowers other barriers, and some obstacles strengthen other obstacles. Drawing on the comparison among Germany, France, and Sweden, we highlight some interesting practices that could be used in the coordination and alignment of systemic conditions for the deployment of RE cooperative projects., Funding agencies: Swedish Energy Agency [40642-1]

Renewable energy technologies (RE) are a condition to reach the system change required for a sustainable society. During the last decade, many policies have been developed in order to encourage the creation and the spreading of these innovations. The problem is that policies focus on quantity goals and do not monitor the quality of those innovations from a system perspective. Meanwhile, policies attract innovation-adopters who lack knowledge and experience about the innovation that they adopt. The risk of a low implementation quality is therefore high among innovation-adopters and supporting them is crucial. Based on the example of the implementation of wind power in Sweden, our aim is therefore to understand the implementation process by studying the factors that affect the implementation choices of 15 innovation-adopters, which we illustrate through 5 cases. In a second time, we study the potential role that private intermediaries have to play in this process, by looking at the cases of three wind project developers. We found that innovation-adopters are influenced by norms and values, knowledge and experience, resources, organizational structure and the local context where the innovation is implemented, during the implementation process. Some of these influences affect the implementation positively, whereas other result in choices leading to a lower quality of the implementation. Likewise, we found that private intermediaries can help filling in a number of the gaps that were affecting innovation-adopters in their implementation process, by taking the roles of knowledge experts, mediators, market integrators and implementation substitutes. Despite a number of unsolved implementation problems, we can see that private intermediaries contribute in better implementations of RE innovations and we end our paper with some policy recommendations to increase the implementation quality of RE-innovations.

The transformation of energy systems towards a low-carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production capacity, in terms of new power plants as well as conversion from fossil fuels to renewable fuels such as biomass. In order for those investments to increase, a larger number of actors have to see renewable electricity production as an opportunity worth pursuing. Understanding the motives and decision processes involved in opportunity recognition and exploitation in this field is, thus, key to predicting and encouraging further investments. Recent studies have shown that investments in renewable electricity production are made by a diverse (in terms of knowledge and experience) set of actors (Bergek et al., 2012). Many of these have little or no previous experience of electricity production, which implies that recognizing and pursuing the opportunity of renewable electricity production implied a radical break with their existing routines for the purpose of creating new (for them) combinations of resources (cf. Schumpeter, 1934b). In this conference paper, we study these actors from an entrepreneurship perspective in order to understand why they came to recognize the same basic opportunity (to invest in renewable electricity production) in spite of their apparent lack of knowledge and previous experience, and how they were able to acquire the resources needed to exploit the opportunity. Traditionally, economic value has been seen as the main entrepreneurial motive: entrepreneurs exploit opportunities in order to generate profit (cf. Baumol, 1990; Casson, 1982; Gilad and Levine, 1986; Kirzner, 1973; Schumpeter, 1934b; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000b; Silver and Auster, 1969). Recently, the idea has been put forward that exploitation of opportunities may be driven by sustainability values or concerns, such as a wish to induce social or environmental change (e.g. Hockerts and Wüstenhagen, 2010; Schaltegger and Wagner, 2007; Zahra et al., 2009)., Nya investerare i förnybar elproduktion (NyEl)

In accordance with the 20-20-20 targets set by the European Union in the climate and energy package (2009/28/EC), national policies aiming at increasing renewable electricity production have emerged among European countries. The tradable green certificate (TGC) is one of the policy instruments being used in e.g. Italy, the UK, Sweden and Norway, where the scheme was recently implemented. Previous literature has discussed the advantages and disadvantages of TGC systems, primarily from an economic efficiency point of view (del Rio, 2005; Fristrup, 2003; Lemming, 2003; Morthorst, 2000). However, very little has been said about their effect on investors’ decision to invest. In a recent working paper, we have demonstrated that investors in renewable electricity production are a heterogeneous group and argued that policy makers’ misconception of who actually invests in renewable electricity production may have important implications for the design of effective policies. In this paper, we focus on the triggers of different type of investors’ decisions to invest in renewable electricity production. Based on interviews with different types of investors in renewable electricity production, i.e. farmers, IPPs, diversified companies, project developers, sole traders, economic associations and public non-energy organizations, we show that for many types of investors, profit maximization is not the primary motive of the investment, and that financial incentives, such as TGC, have a limited effect on investment decisions. We therefore argue that different investor categories require different kind of incentives. Based on a multidimensional framework that includes entrepreneurship, innovation adoption and institutional aspects, we identify a number of investor-related variables, which should be considered by policy makers when designing future policies to promote investments in renewable electricity production. References: del Rio, P., 2005. A European-wide harmonised tradable gree, Nya investerare i förnybar elproduktion (NyEl)

Background: As Porter’s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms’ strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers. On the national level, companies multiply customer surveys in order to reach their expectations. On the global level, this is more complicated. Adaptation seeks to customise product offerings to be more tailored to a particular culture’s needs and tastes, and thus, can gather a greater market share than would be allowed by offering only a standardised product. In this thesis, we decide to look deeper at industry circumstances, corporation’s customisation strategies and competitive advantages of customisation in order to know whether companies can use customisation to be more profitable. We also want to investigate how the development situation of the industry and the function of customer orientation influence the company’s strategies; and how companies use their customer adaptation strategies to adapt their products and marketing to local markets. Purpose: The purpose of our work is to develop companies’ awareness on the effects of customisation and of adapting their products to customer behaviours by developing customers’ point of view and by comparing it to companies’ strategies. Results: According to the research results, Nestlé has adopted the customised strategies to adapt to French and Chinese dairy markets. Based on the Sheth’s model, we refined a new model by completing Sheth’s one with two dimensions - customer focus dimension and market type dimension. We characterised the customer orientation strategy and the standardisationstrategy, which are the two principa