Institutional learning in the energy transition: The case of offshore wind in the United States

The U.S. East Coast holds significant potential for offshore wind (OSW) development, offering a pathway for large-scale decarbonization. Achieving it requires creating a new industrial sector. We analyze efforts from 2017 to 2024, a period of major challenges, to understand what is needed for political institutions—policies, regulations, practices, and organizational structures—to foster this transition. Using social learning theory and a multiple case study design—three cases, each centered on a key function of OSW deployment within one state—we examine whether and how state actors accessed new information and enacted novel practices and structures. The study reveals varied, emergent, and context-dependent learning pathways, encompassing learning processes (acquiring, creating, interpreting, and disseminating new information) and learning outcomes (changes in practices, programs, or policies). Evolving political institutions act not only as incumbents, but also as disruptors. The revenue stabilization case (NY) illustrates intra-jurisdictional, incremental learning within a single institution and highlights the importance of conceptual outcomes. The fisheries compensation case (MA) demonstrates multi-jurisdictional, transformational learning through new multi-state venues that iteratively defined problems and developed solutions amidst on-going contestation. The coordinated transmission case (NJ) demonstrates inter-jurisdictional learning and underscores the importance of power dynamics, as state actors reshaped existing processes to advance novel coordinated planning. Across cases, we identify five factors—problem definition, jurisdictional scope, clarity of authority, problem-mandate alignment, and challenge complexity—that shape learning pathways. Institutional learning in sustainability transitions is an important area for future research, given the urgency of accelerating energy transitions and the growing institutional barriers impeding them.