Energy Technology Innovation: Learning from Historical Successes and Failures

Arnulf Grubler is a world leading scholar on the history of energy systems and on technological change and innovation policy. He is Acting Program Leader of the Transitions to New Technologies Program at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, and Professor in the field of Energy and Technology at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He has been serving as lead and contributing author and review editor for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1996. He has authored or edited several books, including Technology and Global Change (Cambridge, 1998) and Technological Change and the Environment (with N. Nakicenovic and W. D. Nordhaus, 2002). He is also a convening lead author of three chapters in the Global Energy Assessment (Cambridge, 2012).

Charlie Wilson is a researcher with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and a lecturer in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He is a scholar on innovation studies and on the history of technological change in energy systems. His current research focuses on both historical and future technology diffusion dynamics, and the adoption of energy-efficient and smart home technologies. Previously he has held positions with the London School of Economics and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. He is also a lead author of two chapters in the Global Energy Assessment (Cambridge, 2012).