From path dependence to path creation: How China's incumbent power generators navigate the energy transition?

Beyond dichotomous views of resistance and support, the roles of incumbents in sustainability transitions are increasingly recognized as multidimensional, heterogeneous, and temporally dynamic. However, longitudinal empirical analysis remains limited regarding how such roles are reconfigured across transition phases into differentiated firm-level pathways, especially for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in state-led transitions. China's power generation sector offers an instructive case. It combines partial power market reform with strong state direction, placing incumbent SOEs under hybrid objectives of commercial performance and public service delivery, including expanding renewables while maintaining reliable supply. Based on 19 semi-structured interviews and secondary materials, this study conducts a longitudinal qualitative case study of China's “Big Five” power generation SOEs from 2002 to 2024, using an enriched Triple Embeddedness Framework (TEF). Five system-level transition phases are identified: predevelopment (2002–2005), take-off (2006–2010), acceleration (2011–2014), reconfiguration (2015–2019), and re-alignment (2020–2024). The findings show that transition pressures evolved non-linearly as decarbonization was repeatedly recalibrated against energy security, affordability, and economic growth. In response, the Big Five exhibited phase-dependent patterns of legitimacy-oriented convergence and capability-based divergence. Their long-term trajectories are conceptualized as five ideal-typical pathways, namely system-stabilizing expansion, public-service anchoring, system integration, low-carbon frontrunning, and market-interface innovation. The study contributes a temporally sensitive account of incumbency in state-led energy transitions and extends the TEF to a coupled state-market setting, with implications for energy transitions in emerging and developing economies.