The electricity system has been innovating itself from the beginning onwards – albeit with a long period of stabilization and incremental growth in between. It is with upcoming crises and impulses from inside and outside that the incumbent system is challenged and that marginal and innovative options (such as renewable technologies, or Combined Cycle Gas Turbines) have made their way into the system up to now. In this chapter, we provide a brief sketch of the transformation process in electricity systems as a context of our more focused case studies. We outline the development of electricity systems in the last one and a half centuries, look at the related innovation cycles and the outcome in terms of the current electricity system.
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(2009). Transformation and Innovation in Power Systems. In: Innovation for Sustainable Electricity Systems. Sustainability and Innovation. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2076-8_2
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