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Society is making increasing efforts to become more sustainable by fostering new technologies such as renewable energy. Often, there are significant challenges to introducing new technologies because existing infrastructure, institutions, social groupings, and behaviours have co-evolved with and consequently support incumbent technologies - a condition known as lock-in. To support efforts to introduce new technologies, researchers have developed conceptual frameworks that aim to increase our understanding of socio-technical change. One promising framework is Strategic Niche Management (SNM); however despite its strength as an ex post analytical tool, SNM has yet to be used to guide experiments with new technologies. This thesis aims to make SNM more usable for those introducing new technologies by responding to four weaknesses identified in existing literature: a weak link between the conceptual framework and action, the vague role of actors, an inadequate appreciation of issues of consensus and limits of influence, and an inadequate appreciation of the challenges that actors may face. This is achieved by identifying promising insights and testing them on a case study of wind power in Australia. The literature review identifies dynamics that have been linked to positive feedbacks in the development of new technologies and socio-technical change. These are: stimulating demand, increasing use, learning and articulation, increasing functionality, decreasing costs, decreasing uncertainty, embedding and alignment, increasing legitimacy, attracting actors, and strengthening expectations and visions. These dynamics can be used to provide a better link between theory and action. The review also identifies particular actor roles - such as niche manager, macro actor, prime mover, and dedicated network builder - and actions that actors in these roles may take. These roles and actions are linked to the dynamics. Also reviewed are issues related to consensus and limits of influence; a particularly useful concept in this regard is resource interdependency. Finally, the review identifies challenges to encouraging the dynamics aimed at helping actors to anticipate problems in the introduction of new technologies. T he relevance of this approach and applicability of these insights are tested with a case study of wind power in Australia. The case study explains changes related to grid-connected wind power in Australia between about 1997 and 2007. There was significant socio-technical change: for example, installed grid-connected wind farm capacity grew from about 1 MW to almost 900 MW, an industry and industry association formed, there were unprecedented changes in energy policy, new high-level actor groups formed to oversee the grid-integration of wind power, Governments amended planning schemes, and public opinion was increasingly articulated. The dynamics identified in the literature review were all relevant to wind power. The study provides examples of the actors that can encourage these dynamics and how they might do so. Most challenges identified in the literature review were relevant to wind power and possible strategies for managing them were identified. Also revealed were challenges in transitional strategies, legitimacy of the technology and consensus. These findings are discussed in detail. These findings are intended to help actors foster technologies for sustainability.

Over the past decade, technologies that facilitate household electricity production and storage have seen a rapid development along with a significant cost reduction. Research points to an increased share of household-produced electricity within the existing national grids across the globe. In some cases, self-sufficiency is possible where households are able to decouple from the grid and become independent on their electricity, in other words, go off-grid. Furthermore, this change puts additional pressure on how the electricity system is set up, which, challenges prevailing incumbents to adapt. Depending on the geographical location, circumstances for selfsufficiency varies. Sweden is a country with high seasonal variations with its Northern position, which raises the question of how off-grid households are feasible and, how they can receive traction. To investigate possible changes within large technical systems such as the electricity system, which is a vital part of the society, theories within socio-technical systems have shown much promise. However, these theories often lack the more techno-economic aspect of concrete and future investment costs from a consumer perspective, suggesting an existing research gap. Hence, the purpose of this study is to provide further knowledge regarding off-grid applications in the Swedish Context. This is done by investigating what circumstances could trigger existing electricity consumers to go off-grid. The research process and structure of the report can be interpreted as indiscriminate, however, the study has focused on combining theories surrounding socio-technical changes whilst applying techno-economic modelling to strengthen the work, similar to a dual paper study. Data was collected in the form of a literature review and interviews to provide a holistic representation of off-grid and its nexus to the electricity system. In addition to this, complementing modelling of grid-connected-, prosumer-, and off-grid households were performed. Results point towards a scene where off-grid reaches grid parity within the coming two decades, which, will increase the economic rationale of investing in an off-grid. Opposingly, there is currently no economic rationale in off-grid applications considering the relatively low electricity costs in Sweden as of today. Moreover, conditions show promise if the adopters see beyond economics and, possesses a strong will towards independence. However, implications suggest that the high reliability and low costs of the Swedish electricity grid impedes the ability of new radical innovations to receive traction. Furthermore, this study has contributed by filling the research gap between socio-technical changes and techno-economic projects in regards to electricity systems. Consequently, contributing to the academic field of socio-technical change, it has been shown that the combination of socio-technical change and techno-economic projections is applicable and beneficial. Additionally, it can be argued that the results of this study highlight that the consumer have a greater role in the development of off-grid applications than what the theories suggest. Lastly, the electricity system is a complex mechanism and, to further strengthen the perception of how a relatively new application, as in the case of off-grid, will impact the system, appurtenant suggestions for possible future research within the area are proposed. / Under det senaste decenniet har teknik som underlättar hushållens elproduktion och lagring haft en hastig utveckling tillsammans med en betydande kostnadsminskning. Forskning pekar på en ökad andel hushållsproducerad el inom de befintliga nationella elnäten över hela världen. I vissa fall är självförsörjning möjligt där hushållen kan koppla bort sig från nätet och bli oberoende av sin elförsörjning, med andra ord gå off-grid. Vidare leder en potentiell förändring mot offgrid till ytterligare påtryckningar på hur elsystemet är uppbyggt, vilket utmanar många aktörers sätt att agera. Beroende på geografisk plats så varierar förutsättningarna för självförsörjning. Sverige är ett land med stora säsongsvariationer i och med sin nordliga position, vilket väcker frågan om off-grid hushåll är genomförbara i Sverige och hur de kan skulle kunna etableras. För att undersöka möjliga förändringar inom stora tekniska system som elsystemet, som är en viktig del av samhället, har teorier inom socio-tekniska system visat vara till stor nytta. Däremot saknar dessa teorier emellertid den mer tekno-ekonomiska aspekten av konkreta och framtida investeringskostnader ur ett konsumentperspektiv, vilket antyder ett befintligt forskningsgap. Följaktligen är syftet med den här studien att ge ytterligare inblick om off-grid-applikationer i svenska sammanhang. Vilket har gjorts genom att undersöka vilka omständigheter som kan leda till att befintliga elkonsumenter går off-grid. Forskningsprocessen och strukturen i rapporten kan vara svårtolkat, men studien har fokuserat på att kombinera teorier kring socio-tekniska förändringar samtidigt som man använder teknoekonomisk modellering för att stärka arbetet. Data samlades in i form av en litteraturstudie och intervjuer för att ge en holistisk representation av off-grid och dess koppling till elsystemet. Utöver litteraturstudie utfördes kompletterande modellering av hushållsanslutna, prosumeroch off-gridhushåll. Resultaten pekar mot scenarion där off-grid når nätparitet under de kommande två decennierna, vilket kommer att öka den ekonomiska rationaliteten för att investera i ett off-grid. Det finns det för närvarande inga ekonomiska skäl till att investera off-grid-applikationer med tanke på de relativt låga elkostnaderna i Sverige idag. Förhållandena visar dessutom löfte om att potentiella användare ser förbi ekonomin och har istället en stark vilja mot självständighet. Implikationer tyder emellertid på att det svenska elnätets höga tillförlitlighet och låga pris hindrar nya radikala innovationers förmåga att ta få fäste. Det är argumenterbart att den här studien har bidragit med att fylla forskningsgapet mellan socio-tekniska förändringar och tekno-ekonomiska projektioner inom elsystem. Samtidigt har studien bidragit till det vetenskapliga området kring socio-tekniska visat på möjligheten och fördelen i att kombinera teorier kring socio-teknisk förändring och tekno-ekonomiska förändringar. Dessutom kan det hävdas att resultaten av den här studie visar att konsumenten har en större roll i utvecklingen av applikationer utanför nätet än vad teorierna föreslår. Slutligen är elsystemet en komplex mekanism, och för att ytterligare stärka uppfattningen om hur en relativt ny applikation, som i fallet utanför nätet, kommer att påverka systemet föreslås lämpliga förslag för eventuell framtida forskning inom området.