| dc.description.abstract | With increased attention to climate change and deliberate efforts to mitigate its cascading consequences, political goals on electrification put the grid infrastructure centre stage to lower CO2 emissions in Norway. In Vestland, the electrical grids have, in many areas, reached its maximum capacity and can no longer connect new end-users without upgrading the electrical grids or build new ones. Planning and building a new transmission line can take up to 12 years, compromising the goals of many industry actors and threatening Norway’s goal to cut emissions by 50% per cent within 2030. Against this background, this thesis provides empirical insight into how the sustainability transition in Western Norway unfolds when both time and electricity are scarce commodities. In this thesis, I take a systemic view to open a few of the many backboxes in energy transitions. Conceptually, I combine the theoretical frameworks of whole system reconfiguration, multi-system interactions and transition work. Through qualitative interviews with central actors, findings show how institutional tensions across socio-technical system influence electrification processes. Furthermore, I highlight the role of actors and their deliberate efforts to shape the institutional arrangements in favour of new and sustainable industrial initiatives. Through these efforts, actors enable change in the system architecture, contribute to destabilising embedded policy practices and help accelerate the reconfiguration of the electricity system. By zooming in on efforts to align problem agendas between government levels and private and public actors, this thesis address how transformative policy must have a broad problem framing when solving grand societal challenges, such as the sustainability issue. | eng |