The emergence of renewable energy clusters: a proposed framework for typification

The renewable energy transition has societal implications, including opportunities for citizen participation, equity and justice in workforce transitions, and reconciliation. Renewable energy clusters - in various forms - may be one of the drivers of a sustainability transition. They provide a potentially important pathway to a low-carbon energy transition. Renewable energy clusters are linked to goals such as emissions reductions, regional development, the provision of reliable energy, or as industrial clusters along the renewable energy value chain. However, a clear definition of renewable energy clusters does not exist, and the range of renewable energy clusters that exist so far have not been typified, nor have the factors influencing their emergence been studied. This paper investigates the factors that predict the emergence and type of renewable energy clusters. As a starting point, three conceptual types of renewable energy clusters are identified: (1) Industrial clusters that produce renewable energy technologies; (2) Material shared renewable energy clusters that provide reliable and resilient energy; and (3) Material renewable energy clusters that power existing communities and industries. To predict the emergence of renewable energy clusters, a framework is proposed based in the fields of 1) regional sciences, that explains regional economies and roles of socioeconomic networks of actors; 2) sustainability transitions through the technology innovation systems framework that identifies range of actors, networks and institutions that affect the development and diffusion of innovations; and 3) energy geography, that addresses scaling and decentralization, location and landscape. In this framework, the factors that might drive the three types of renewable energy clusters were synthesised from the three fields. Insights are incorporated to identify the range of enabling factors and impacts of renewable energy clusters and their heterogeneous emergence in different locations. Across these literatures, seven dimensions are identified that could address the drivers, contexts, and inhibitors of renewable energy clusters. These are: 1) actors, 2) institutions, 3) networks, 4) knowledge and tools, 5) proximity, 6) location characteristics, 7) path dependency.