Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Technology deployment policies (TDP) in the energy sector are an increasingly used tool to foster the widespread adoption of technologies, and to promote the establishment of innovation systems that produce, develop and process a certain technology. During the lifespan of a TDP, societal approval of a technology or policy can diminish due to, for example, a change in alignment of technology with common societal values, beliefs or use patterns. This loss-of-legitimacy can lead to abrupt policy shifts and even put an unforeseen end to a TDP.

I argue that policy makers can damp such unwanted effects by simultaneously supporting, within the same policy framework, different technologies fulfilling the same functions – a wind turbine can produce low-emissions electricity as can a solar cell. Technologies are unlikely to face loss-of- legitimacy-issues at the same time. Several benefits come with the simultaneous support: policy makers can transfer lessons learned from one technology to another, technologies can replace each other and Innovation Systems will develop concurrently.

I illustrate the point with a study of legitimacy of the different technologies within the German renewable energy act (GREA). Using advanced topic modelling tools, I explore the complex interactions of policy development from 2000 to 2017 and the legitimacy of the different technologies and their related innovation systems. A shift in legitimacy of the GREA due to rising costs mostly attributed to solar cell deployment lead to various reforms interacting with the legitimacy of technologies differently.