Institutionally embedded: the dilemma in the formulation of sustainable electricity policy in Hong Kong

Abstract

The development of electricity policy in Hong Kong has illustrated the arduous task of incorporating environmental principles into a traditionally growth-led model. Attempts to reform the obsolete policy framework prove ineffective due to some path-dependent institutional constraints which are inherited from its development model and intensified by the recent political contests. These have precluded a timely transformation of the relations between the power supply and demand. The state has failed to tackle these structural impediments and tends to focus more on technical solutions than truly collaborative initiatives. The minimal progress in local democratic development and the planned extension of the monopolist status of the existing utilities have also created public distrust against the state and the utilities. Environmental initiatives then become technocratic or rhetoric. The analysis reveals that the ecological rationalization of the electricity policy has been confined by the inherent institutional dilemma. Capacities for developing a sustainable electricity policy have diminished as some existing institutions resist changing, despite preliminary forms of responsive institutions are established.