Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/28524 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Sustainability and Innovation No. S4/2007
Publisher: 
Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI, Karlsruhe
Abstract: 
Although fundamental innovations can make especially important contributions to the environmental soundness of economic progress, they are often impeded by path dependency and lock-in on the part of established technologies. Because the intensity of the latter effect changes in time, it is possible to identify and strategically use windows of opportunity - periods in which successful transition is greatly facilitated. In the case of the mobile fuel cell, economies of scale, learning and network effects are among the most important techno-economic determinants of such a window. Other more political determinants are political guidance and supranational agreements. All effects were combined to form a time strategy that allows innovation policy to effectively push the new technology at the lowest possible cost for the economy.
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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