Learning in wind turbine development

Both the Netherlands and Denmark started to develop wind energy in the 1970s. Reasons were the oil crisis and the Club of Rome report, which warned of imminent shortages of traditional energy sources like oil and gas. Both countries started this development around 1975 and their governments gave active support. Furthermore, both countries have a comparable wind regime. However, the result of the development of wind energy in each country is very different. In the year 2000, Denmark had a flourishing wind turbine industry, that produced wind turbines for the world market. Furthermore, at the end of the year 2000 the cumulative installed capacity of wind turbines in Denmark was 2,340 MW and wind turbines produced 15% of the electricity demand. In the Netherlands, the situation was far less rosy. Although 10 to 15 wind turbine manufacturers were active on the Dutch market at the beginning of the 1980s, in 2000 only one remained. Furthermore, at the end of the year 2000 only 442 MW of wind turbines had been installed in the Netherlands, the target for the year 2000 having been 2,000 MW. What is the reason for this large difference in the success of the Netherlands and Denmark? This question was the starting point for our research. We investigated whether differences in learning processes in innovation systems during technology development can be the cause for this difference. Our reserach question was: To what extent did the learning processes in the Dutch and the Danish wind turbine innovation systems differ in the period 1973-2000 and what are the consequences of these differences? On the basis of the literature on innovation we identified four kinds of learning: learning by searching (or Research & Development), learning by doing, learning by using and learning by interacting, and the conditions that facilitate these kinds of learning. Next, we investigated the development of wind turbines in the Netherlands and in Denmark and analysed these development with a focus on the learning processes we identified. Our main conclusion is, that in the Netherlands learning by searching much more important than in Denmark, while in Denmark learning by using and learning by interacting were the main learning processes. The strong emphasis on learning by searching in the Netherlands resulted in a large amount of scientific research and a good international position of the Dutch wind energy research. However, the results of this research were hardly used by the wind turbine producers. In Denmark, the market for wind turbines was far larger and better organsied than in the Netherlands. The main reason for this is the early introduction of investment subsidies for wind turbine buyers in Denmark. There were many contacts between the wind turbine owners, the wind turbine producers and the research institute Riso. During these contacts, a lot of knowledge was exchanged between the actors. On the basis of this knowledge, the wind turbine producers developed there turbines further. We argue, that this difference in learning processes in the Dutch and Danish wind turbine innovation systems is an important reason for the difference in success between both innovation systems.