Pulled or pushed? The spatial diffusion of wind energy between local demand and supply

Abstract

Abstract This article contributes to and connects the literature on spatial innovation diffusion, entrepreneurship, and industry life-cycles by disentangling the relevance of local demand and supply in the adoption of wind energy production. More precisely, we evaluate the strength of local supply–push effects with those of local demand–pull over the course of the evolution of an industry and its main product evolution. By using Bayesian survival models with time-dependent data of wind turbine deployment and firm foundation for 402 German regions between the years 1970 and 2015, we show that the spatial evolution of the German wind energy industry was more strongly influenced by local demand–pull than local supply–push processes. New producers are found to emerge in proximity to existing local demand for wind turbines. No evidence was found for producers being able to create local demand for their products by pushing the adoption of the technology in their regions.