Analysis of the CHP Technological Innovation System in Iran using the Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)

Abstract

Background: As many other countries, Iran has adopted policies consider energy technologies development. One of these technologies around which several national programs have launched is the Cogeneration of Heat and Power (CHP). Despite the variety of plans and actions in different governmental and non-governmental bodies, the fact is that the national targets have not been fulfilled as they were expected. Since the first step to make policies for technology development is recognizing the problems and bottlenecks hindering the development process, the main aim of this paper is to provide a model to analyze the failures of technology development process according to Technological Innovation System (TIS) approach. Besides, the CLA method has been used to decipher the profound and latent factors causing these problems. Results: By mixing up CLA and TIS approaches, this paper achieves a comprehensive model describing the causal relationship between multi-layered problems of technology development. Afterwards, by using structural equation modelling, the correlation amongst multi-layered problems was tested. While most studies have concentrated on the structural and functional problems of the TIS, the results of the model demonstrate a significant role of the discourses and visions. Although the structural problems have had the most significant effect on the functional problems, surprisingly, the second position is for the problems related to metaphors. This might be the most noticeable result of this research that the metaphoric and visionary factors can play a role as important as structures of the TIS. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that the discursive and metaphoric factors have had the significant effect both directly on the failure of the CHP innovation system and indirectly through affecting structural elements. A notable policy suggestion is to change the discourse of centralized power generation and to make more effort regarding the energy efficiency in the society. Moreover, policies should create a positive and long-term vision for development of CHP plants.