Context Matters: Conditions for the Adoption of Clean Energy Technologies in the Archipelago Context

This article analyses how technological, industrial, institutional, social, and spatial context influences the adoption of clean energy technologies using the Stockholm archipelago as its empirical setting. The paper examines the role of technology as an independent contextual element along with commonly used concepts within context analysis. Empirically, the paper provides new knowledge of what affects the adoption of clean energy technologies. The study was designed using a combination of phenomenology and text analysis, based on data extracted from semi-structured interviews, field visit notes, workshops, public documents, and other sources. We identified five meaning-bearing units, namely systemic issues; monopoly issues; government, governance, formal and informal institutions; networks, social capital and agency; and geography and infrastructure. Results indicate that the adoption of clean energy technologies is easier when technologies have gained support from the state and can be adopted individually with a low level of infrastructural investments. Technologies that are conditioned by the need to make large infrastructural investments are more difficult to adopt. The institutional, geographical, and infrastructural fragmentation of the archipelago limits the possibility of adopting clean energy technologies, thereby limiting the access of sustainable solutions for local communities and local businesses. The article outlines possible pathways to foster the adoption of clean energy technologies in the archipelago context.