June 2025

The energy transition is a process of disruptive innovation and structural transformation. Given the countless moving parts and complex interactions of global energy systems, this process often involves change that is non-linear and difficult to predict. In this brief, we argue that feedback effects are key to understanding change of this nature.

Feedbacks can either amplify or dampen change, meaning that policy interventions can achieve much more, or much less, than their intended outcomes. Governments and decision makers that understand these recurring patterns will be better able to recognise them when they arise, anticipate them in advance, and harness them to manage the risks and take the opportunities of the transition.

In this brief, we identify ten archetypical feedback effects that are driving system behaviour through the energy transition, providing explanations, examples, and policy implications for each. We relate these to questions such as: why have electric vehicles achieved dominance over hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Why has deployment of solar and wind energy exploded faster than even the most optimistic projections? And could declining demand for coal, oil, and gas send fossil fuel industries into a permanent downwards spiral?