Rusty dinosaurs and the surviving species in the new energy system? Analysing urban utilities in the German and Swiss energy transition

After the nuclear accident in Fukushima, amongst others Germany and Switzerland decided to accelerate the sustainability transition of their energy systems not only by expanding the share of renewables actively but also by quitting nuclear power. Regarding this political level of ambition, energy companies´ strategies play a decisive role in terms of the implementation, progress and success of the energy supply system’s transition. So far scholars in sustainability transition research working on the role of energy companies for the transition process, mainly focused on two actor types: firstly, big energy utilities, the incumbents which often hinder the transition and secondly, the new entrants, small innovative businesses challenging the incumbents with new technologies or business models. However, hardly any scholarly work studies another important actor group, which lies in between: the municipal utilities (“Stadtwerke”). In Germany and Switzerland, some big municipal utilities are part of the ten most powerful energy providers and in Germany they are even seen as the fifth big power besides the “big four”. Hence, the municipal utilities form an important and powerful actor group in terms of the energy transitions’ progress, which need to be studied more in detail. In our work, we analyse i) the structural characteristics of four big municipal utilities in Germany and Switzerland, ii) their business strategies regarding the increase of renewables, iii) how these strategies are influenced by factors from the economic, socio-political and physical environment and iv) how the utilities strategically react to the various influence factors on different scales. We employ the triple embeddedness framework (TEF) by Frank Geels, which considers the interaction of firms with their economic and socio-political environment and facilitates an in-depth case study analysis. For empirical evidence, we conduct an explorative case study analysis with four big municipal utilities in Germany and Switzerland in the cities of Munich, Hannover, Geneva and Zurich. This allows not only for an in-depth analysis of the single municipal utilities, its business strategies and local environment but also for an inter-national comparison of different political settings, which are highly important for the municipal utilities. Methodologically, we firstly employ a document analysis on the utilities structural characteristics and business strategies – on the general firm level but also on the specific business area of renewables. Secondly, we conduct explorative expert interviews with researchers and members of associations in the field as well as the CEOs of the four selected utilities to further reveal the specifics of municipal utilities, obtain an improved knowledge on their business strategies and an overview on important influence factors. Thirdly, we conduct semi-structured expert interviews with different members of the four utilities’ strategic management board, the mu