Britain’s gas system developed in the early 1800s. Over the past two centuries the system and its local, national and international networks have experienced much socio-technical innovation, governance changes and six key transitions. Since the Climate Change Act of 2008, it faces a seventh challenging transition as the UK moves uncertainly towards a low-carbon energy system, including decarbonising electricity, heat and transport. The paper explores: the origins of the system by Murdoch, Boulton and Watt; the early 19th century development of local gas networks; innovative responses to, inter alia, the challenge of incandescent electric light from the 1880s, including the expansion of the customer base and the development and active promotion of cooking and heat services – the growth, fragmentation and incoherence of the industry between the two World Wars; the post-war period that saw the industry nationalised in 1948, as the multi-fuel economy developed; the institutional, technical and social challenges associated with the conversion to North Sea natural gas in the 1960s; and innovation and change in response to the challenges that flowed from the privatisation of British Gas in 1987. The paper shows how examining past processes of innovation, transition and transformation through the lens of institutional ‘governance logics’ helps appreciate the challenges faced by system actors, technologies, institutions and regulators in the past and offers insights into the issues posed by the low-carbon transition. The paper begins by outlining some analytical concepts used in the analysis. We then examine the regime’s six past transitions. The paper concludes by considering what insights these past experiences suggest for a seventh transition towards a low-carbon economy, for the future governance of the UK gas system and its networks and particularly for natural gas.
IEA (International Energy Agency). Carbon capture and storage: the solution for deep emissions reductions. Paris: Author, 2015.
5.
ETI (Energy Technologies Institute). Carbon capture and storage: building the UK carbon capture and storage sector by 2030 – scenarios and actions. Loughborough: Author.
6.
Energy & Climate Change Committee. Future of carbon capture and storage in the UK▪▪. Second Report of Session 2015–16. House of Commons, HC 692, 2016.
7.
ArapostathisSCarlsson-HyslopAPearsonPJGet al.Governing transitions: cases and insights from two periods in the history of the UK gas industry. Energ Policy2013; 52: 25–44.
8.
ArapostathisSFoxonTJPearsonPJG. UK natural gas network integration in the making, 1960-2010: transitional uncertainties and uncertain transitions. Environ Innov Soc Trans2014; 11: 87–102.
9.
FoxonTJ. Transition pathways to a low carbon electricity future. Energ Policy2013; 52: 10–24.
10.
FoxonTJPearsonPJGArapostathisSet al.Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future. Energ Policy2013; 52: 146–158.
11.
HammondGPPearsonPJG. Challenges of the transition to a low carbon, more electric future: from here to 2050. Energ Policy2013; 52: 1–9.
12.
JohnsonVCASherry-BrennanFPearsonPJG. Alternative liquid fuels in the UK in the interwar period (1918–1938): insights from a failed energy transition. Environ Innov Soc Trans2016; 20: 33–47.
13.
PearsonPJGFoxonTJ. A low carbon industrial revolution? Insights and challenges from past technological and economic transformations. Energ Policy2012; 50: 117–127.
14.
GeelsFW. Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study. Res Policy2002; 31: 1257–1274.
15.
GeelsFW. Technological transitions and system innovations: a coevolutionary and socio-technical analysis, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005.
16.
GeelsFW. The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: responses to seven criticisms. Environ Innov Soc Trans2011; 1: 24–40.
17.
GrinJet al.Transitions to sustainable development: new directions in the study of long term transformative change, New York: Routledge, 2010.
18.
FoxonTJ. A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy. Ecol Econ2011; 70: 2258–2267.
19.
FoxonTJHammondGPPearsonPJG. Developing transition pathways for a low carbon electricity system in the UK. Technol Forecast Soc2010; 77: 1203–1213.
20.
BoltonRFoxonTJ. A socio-technical perspective on low carbon investment challenges – insights for UK energy policy. Environ Innov Soc Trans2015; 14: 165–181.
21.
BoltonRFoxonTJ. Infrastructure transformation as a socio-technical process – implications for the governance of energy distribution networks in the UK. Technol Forecast Soc2015; 90: 538–550.
22.
ThorntonPHOcasioW. Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958–1990. Am J Sociol1999; 105: 801–843.
23.
ThorntonPHOcasioWInstitutional logics. In: GreenwoodROliverCSahlinKet al. (eds). The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism, London: SAGE, 2008, pp. 99–129.
24.
SminkMet al.How mismatching institutional logics hinder niche-regime interaction and how boundary spanners intervene. Tech Fore Soc Change2015; 100: 225–237.
25.
FuenfschillingLTrufferB. The structuration of socio-technical regimes – conceptual foundations from institutional theory. Res Policy2014; 43: 772–791.
26.
FuenfschillingLTrufferB. The interplay of institutions, actors and technologies in socio-technical systems – an analysis of transformations in the Australian urban water sector. Tech Fore Soc Change2016; 103: 298–312.
27.
PearsonPWatsonJ. UK Energy Policy, 1980-2010: a history and lessons to be learned, London: IET and Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies, 2012.
28.
FriedlandR. Book review: the institutional logics perspective: a new approach to culture, structure and process. M@n@gement2012; 15: 582–595.
29.
ThorntonPHOcasioWLounsburyM. The institutional logics perspective. A new approach to culture, structure, and process, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
30.
DauntonMThe material politics of natural monopoly: gas in Victorian Britain. In: DauntonMHiltonM (eds). The politics of consumption, Oxford: Berg, 2001, pp. 69–88.
31.
LawJMolA. Globalisation in practice: on the politics of Boiling Pigswill. Geoforum2008; 39: 133–143.
32.
FouquetRPearsonPJG. Seven centuries of energy services light: the price and use of light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000). Energ J2006; 27: 1300–2000.
33.
TomoryL. Progressive enlightenment: the origins of the gaslight industry 1780-1820s, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012.
34.
LevereTH. Dr Thomas Beddoes: chemistry, medicine, and the perils of democracy. Notes Rec R Soc2009; 63: 215–229.
35.
AllenRC. The British industrial revolution in global perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
36.
AllenRC. Backward into the future: the shift to coal and implications for the next energy transition. Energ Policy2013; 50: 17–23.
37.
NewbiggingTFewtrellWT. King’s Treatise on the science and practice of the manufacture and distribution of coal gas1878; vol. 1, London: William B King.
38.
HuntCB. A history of the introduction of gas lighting, London: Walter King, 1907.
39.
MarsdenBSmithC. Engineering empire: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
40.
FalkusM. Development of municipal trading in 19th-century. Bus Hist1977; 19: 134–161.
41.
MokyrJ. The enlightened economy, London: Penguin Books, 2009.
42.
WilliamsTI. A history of the British Gas Industry, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
43.
WilsonJF. Lighting the town, London: Paul Chapman Publishing for British gas plc North Western, 1991.
44.
MurdochW. An account of the application of the gas from coal to economical purposes. Phil Trans R Soc Lond1808; 98: 124–132.
45.
EverardS. The history of the gas light and coke company, London: Ernest Benn, 1949.
46.
AccumF. Description of the process of manufacturing coal gas for the lighting of streets, houses and public buildings, London: Thomas Boys, 1819.
47.
ChandlerDLaceyAD. The rise of the gas industry in Britain, London: British gas Council, 1949.
48.
MillwardRWardR. From private public ownership of gas undertakings in England and Wales, 1851 – 1947: chronology, incidents and causes. Bus Hist1993; 35: 1–21.
49.
MatthewsD. The technological transformation of the late nineteenth century gas industry. J Econ Hist1987; 47: 967–980.
50.
MatthewsD. Profit sharing in the gas industry, 1889-1949. Bus Hist1988; 30: 306–328.
51.
ArapostathisSGoodayG. Patently contestable: electrical technologies and inventor identities on trial in Britain, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.
52.
GoodayG. Domesticating electricity, London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008.
53.
HughesTP. Networks of power, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1983.
54.
ArapostathisS. Electrical innovations, authority and consulting expertise in late Victorian Britain. Notes Rec R Soc2013; 67: 59–76.
55.
BowersB. A history of electric light and power, London: Peter Peregrinus, 1982.
56.
ClendinningA. Demons of domesticity: women and the English Gas Industry, 1889–1939, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
57.
ChantlerP. The British Gas Industry: an economic study, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1938.
58.
GoodallF. Burning to serve: selling gas in competitive markets, Ashbourne: Landmark Publishing, 1999.
59.
PEP (Political and Economic Planning). Report on the gas industry in Great Britain, London: Author, 1939.
60.
Evans EV. The place of the gas industry in post-war reconstruction and development. Submitted for the consideration of the postwar planning committee of the National Gas Council, October 1941. Privately circulated.
61.
Heyworth Committee. Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Gas Industry▪▪. Cmd. 6699, London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1945.
62.
GeelsFWSchotJ. Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Res Policy2007; 36: 399–417.
63.
SmithAStirlingABerkhoutF. The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions. Res Pol2005; 34: 1491–1510.
64.
MortonF. Report of the inquiry into the safety of natural gas as a fuel. Ministry of Technology, London: HMSO, 1970.
65.
JenkinsA. Government intervention in the British Gas Industry, 1948-70. Bus Hist2004; 46: 57–78.
66.
HelmD. Energy, the state and the market, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
67.
HawdonDStevensP. Regulatory Reform of the UK gas market: the case of the storage auction. Fisc Stud2001; 22: 217–232.
68.
Performance and Innovation Unit. The energy review, London: Cabinet Office, 2002.
69.
van der VleutenEHögseliusPResisting change? The transnational dynamics of European energy regimes. In: VerbongGLoorbackD (eds). Governing the energy transition: reality, illusion, or necessity?, London: Routledge, 2012, pp. 75–100.
QadrdanMet al.Uncertainties in decarbonising heat in the UK. Energ Policy2015; 87: 623–640.
81.
QadrdanMet al.Impact of a transition to a low carbon power system on the GB gas network. Appl Energy2015; 151: 1–12.
82.
National Grid. Future energy scenarios. National Grid, http://fes.nationalgrid.com (2015, accessed 1 June 2016).
83.
Pearson PJG. Energy transitions. In: Durlauf SN and Blume LE (eds) The new Palgrave dictionary of economics. Online edition. Palgrave Macmillan, www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2016_E000341 (2016, accessed 5 June 2016).
84.
Bradshaw M, et al. The UK s Global Gas challenge research report. London: UKERC, November 2014.
85.
HelmD. The carbon crunch: how we’re getting climate change wrong – and how to fix it, 2nd ed revised and updated. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
86.
WhitmarshLet al.UK public perceptions of shale gas hydraulic fracturing: the role of audience, message and contextual factors on risk perceptions and policy support. Appl Energy2015; 160: 419–430.
87.
HammondGPet al.Energy technology assessment of shale gas ‘Fracking’ – a UK perspective. Energy Procedia2015; 75: 2764–2771.
Maclean K, et al. Managing Heat System Decarbonisation: comparing the impacts and costs of transitions in heat infrastructure. Report. Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy & Technology, London, April 2016.
90.
HannonMH. Raising the temperature of the UK heat pump market: learning lessons from Finland. Energ Policy2015; 85: 369–375.
91.
DoddsPEet al.Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for heating: a review. Int J Hydrogen Energy2015; 40: 2065–2083.
