Fields of Gold : Employing Actor-Network Theory to Investigate the Construction and Spread of Large-Scale Solar PV Technology in Apulia, Italy

Abstract

This research seeks to explore and address the dynamic organisational aspects and the mechanisms of construction, maintenance and diffusion of a socio-technical innovation network revolving around the spread of large-scale photovoltaic technology in Apulia, Italy.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is used in this case study to facilitate the understanding of how the development of large renewable-energy projects results from the chronological history of contingent stages of translation, in which complex mutual relationships and alliances between innovation and society materialise through interconnected chains of diverse events, strategies, interests and arguments, owned by diverse actors that merge together in support or in rejection of technology.

In order to obtain a perspective on the dynamic mobilisation-implementation process undertaken by the Apulian PV project over space and time, this research serves to analyse and discuss agency, power and convergence of interests of a wide and multifaceted range of organisational phenomena which constitute the socio-technical actor-networks underlying the innovation system object of study.

Besides acknowledging the importance of the social in studies of technology, the present network analysis demonstrates that when actors’ interests in innovation are not perfectly aligned due to occurrence of resistance, a system faces a loss in convergence, which in turn results in a more or less emphasised slowdown of technology implementation, that is often the only trait visible from the outside.