Evolutionary analysis of technological innovations: the example of solar photovoltaic and wind energy.

Summary In today's energy systems, renewable energy technologies appear as radical environmental innovations. Standard models of innovation and environmental economics focus on incremental innovations. Based on different assumptions, evolutionary analysis allows us to study the learning of renewable energy technologies as new "green" technological trajectories. The technological systems approach then allows us to study the evolution of the German solar photovoltaic and Danish wind energy systems. In the former, public R&D policies and the learning process of the actors have allowed the creation and development of a self-sustaining market. In the second, the combination of the two initial sub-systems, small and large wind turbines, and interactive learning have allowed some firms to dominate the wind energy sector at the global level.