This paper focuses on the specific role of installers, a category of often overlooked diffusion intermediaries doing the actual implementation of energy transitions. We adopt an ecosystems perspective and aim to provide new knowledge on the installers' role in energy transitions, possible changes in this role, and the challenges installers face. Based on evidence from case studies in Gothenburg and Rotterdam, we first show how installers make or break energy transitions. They differ from other intermediaries in their long-term trust relations with customers, their deep contextual knowledge, and involvement in post-technology deployment. We unveil new nuances regarding downstream (installers deploy strategies to include budget-constrained customers in energy transitions) and upstream actors (installers face manufacturers' lock-ins and are trained by wholesalers and manufacturers). Secondly, we show challenges installers face caused by regulatory, market and technological dynamics in transitions, and identify new roles for them as IT-specialists, manufacturers and holistic advisors.
Publication date: September 2025
Article Title: Invisible hands in energy transitions: installers in the European post-industrial cities of Gothenburg and Rotterdam
Authors: Erwin van Tuijl a b, Martin de Jong c d e, Peter Knorringa b, Emma Björner f, Sara Brorström f
a. TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Urbanism, Urban Studies
Section, the Netherlands
b. International Centre for Frugal Innovation (ICFI) & International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus
University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
c. Rotterdam School of Management & Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam,
the Netherlands
d. Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
e. HEC-Liège, University of Liège, Belgium
f. Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics, and Law, University of
Gothenburg, Sweden
Cite this article as: Erwin van Tuijl, Martin de Jong, Peter Knorringa, Emma Björner, Sara Brorström,
Invisible hands in energy transitions: installers in the European post-industrial cities of Gothenburg and Rotterdam, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 127, 2025, 104290, ISSN 2214-6296,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2025.104290.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629625003718)
Keywords: Transmission intermediaries, Energy transitions, Installers, Ecosystems, Post-industrial cities, Case studies