Systems

Energy systems are not simply technical objects with well-defined components. They are sociotechnical configurations in which physical infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, economic actors, and everyday practices are mutually constituted. Systems thinking draws on multiple traditions such as engineering, ecology, and social science, and provides tools for analysing how change propagates, where leverage points exist, and why interventions produce unintended consequences.¹⁾

Socio-technical systems are defined as the linkages between elements necessary to fulfil societal functions.²⁾ For energy, this means actors, technologies, and institutions that co-evolve and align over time³⁾ — encompassing both the supply side (generation, distribution infrastructure) and the demand side (consumer practices, building stock, industrial processes), each shaped by regulatory norms and market rules.

This co-evolution is stabilising and constraining simultaneously. It enables reliable provision at scale, but also produces path dependency and lock-in, where existing technologies, regulations, and actor relationships reinforce each other and resist radical change.⁴⁾ The multi-level perspective (MLP) captures this through three analytical levels: the landscape (broad macro-level pressures), the regime (dominant rules, practices, and technologies), and the niche (where radical innovations develop in protected conditions). Transitions occur when regime destabilisation aligns with niche innovations gaining momentum.

A layered functional reading complements this. Rather than treating energy as a single integrated whole, it distinguishes:

• Resources — fossil fuels, wind, solar, nuclear
• Production — centralised generation, transformation, industrial processes
• Logistics — transmission, distribution, storage, imports/exports
• End-use — people, industry, transport/mobility, ICT and services

Cutting across all layers are supporting capacities (R&I, education) and supporting infrastructures (transport, ICT). This view makes visible how interventions at one layer propagate to others and where systemic dependencies concentrate.

A cyber-physical system (CPS) combines physical processes with embedded computation, networking, and real-time control. The smart grid has been characterised as a system of CPS that must work together to exchange data and perform predictably.⁵⁾

NIST's smart grid conceptual model identifies seven functional domains, such as bulk generation, transmission, distribution, markets, operations, service provider, and customer, and the interfaces across which interoperable, secure data exchange must take place.⁶⁾ From a CPS perspective, smart grid modernisation is a system-of-systems design challenge: intelligent sensors, automated controls, advanced metering, and distributed energy resources must participate in real-time coordination across all domains. This expands operational capabilities — demand flexibility, distributed generation integration — while also expanding the cybersecurity attack surface. Security thus becomes a systemic property of the infrastructure, not a bolt-on concern.

The technological innovation systems (TIS) approach analyses how new energy technologies emerge and challenge incumbents through seven system functions: knowledge development and diffusion, entrepreneurial experimentation, direction of search, market formation, legitimation, resource mobilisation, and positive externalities.⁷⁾ A TIS comprises the technologies, actors, and institutions organised around a particular innovation — asking what systemic conditions are needed for it to develop.

An innovation ecosystem frames this relationally: the interdependent network of entrepreneurs, technology providers, research organisations, financiers, regulators, and users whose coordinated activity enables commercialisation and scaling. Where TIS asks what functions the system performs, ecosystem framing asks who connects whom and who orchestrates collaboration.

Both complement the MLP by attending to how niche innovations are produced in the first place. For smart grid transitions specifically, ICT firms entering the electricity sector have been identified as potential catalysts for sectoral change — bringing business models, standards expectations, and institutional logics that do not fit the traditional utility-centred system.⁸⁾

; Socio-technical system : A configuration of actors, technologies, and institutions co-evolved to fulfil a societal function such as energy provision. ; Regime : The dominant rules, norms, and practices stabilising an established socio-technical system; resistant to radical change. ; Niche : A protected space in which radical innovations develop outside the full competitive and regulatory pressures of the regime. ; Cyber-physical system (CPS) : A system integrating physical processes with computation, networking, and real-time control. ; Technological innovation system (TIS) : The actors, institutions, and technologies organised around a specific technology, assessed through system functions. ; Lock-in : Self-reinforcing interdependencies between technologies, actors, and institutions that make system change difficult even when its need is apparent.

The socio-technical and CPS framings address the same infrastructure from different starting points: the former asks how social and technical elements co-evolved and what this means for change; the latter asks how physical and digital elements must be designed to function reliably together. Smart grid transitions require both: engineering architecture must be designed for interoperability and security, while institutional and market architecture must also evolve to accommodate new actors and coordination demands.

The TIS and innovation ecosystem concepts address overlapping territory. An ecosystem is in one sense a particular TIS configuration at a given moment in a given geography. The distinction carries analytical weight because ecosystem framing emphasises orchestration logic — who sets the terms of collaboration — while TIS framing emphasises functional performance — what activities the system is or is not carrying out.

Transitions, Transition Pathways, Innovation, Technology, Resilience

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Erlinghagen, S., & Markard, J. (2012). Smart grids and the transformation of the electricity sector: ICT firms as potential catalysts for sectoral change. Energy Policy, 51, 895–906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.09.045

Geels, F. W. (2004). From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy, 33(6–7), 897–920. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.01.015

Geels, F. W., Sovacool, B. K., Schwanen, T., & Sorrell, S. (2017). The socio-technical dynamics of low-carbon transitions. Joule, 1(3), 463–479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2017.09.018

Markard, J., Raven, R., & Truffer, B. (2012). Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects. Research Policy, 41(6), 955–967. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2012.02.013

Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.

NARUC (2021). Understanding Cybersecurity for the Smart Grid. National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/73C0CA00-155D-0A36-31DB-ABA572C6A65F

NIST (2021). Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 4.0. National Institute of Standards and Technology. https://www.nist.gov/ctl/smart-connected-systems-division/smart-grid-group/smart-grid-framework