Regional technology legitimation: The case of green hydrogen-based steelmaking

Creating and maintaining legitimacy is essential to enable the transition from a fossil-based to a green hydrogen-based production pathway in the steel industry. With the importance of the regional level in legitimation processes increasingly recognised, this paper aims to examine the processes that influence the regional legitimation of green hydrogen-based steelmaking. Given the lack of further insights into the regional legitimation of technologies in its multi-scalar character, we propose a framework that conceptualises regional technology legitimation as regionally embedded and further shaped by multi-scalar dynamics. Empirically, we draw on a single case study in Salzgitter, Germany, using qualitative content analysis of 19 expert interviews with relevant actors at regional, state, and national levels. Building upon our framework, our analysis identifies three types of processes: At the core are regionally embedded processes that (1) directly influence the embedding of green hydrogen-based steelmaking in regional institutions. As subsidiary legitimation processes, interactions with the regionally embedded legitimacy of (2) related technologies or (3) relevant actors indirectly influence its regional legitimation. These also interact with analogous supra-regionally embedded processes. Our findings suggest that green hydrogen-based steelmaking is embedded in regional institutional structures and largely supported by overarching dynamics. The regional legitimation is also influenced by interactions with the regionally embedded legitimacy of green hydrogen and the automotive industry, both of which are interdependent with supra-regional levels. Consideration of these multi-scalar interactions has been lacking in previous studies of regional technology legitimation and offers important insights for future research and policy making.