Householders co-managing energy systems: space for collaboration?

• Published in: Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration Vol. 47; no. 5; pp. 585 - 597
• Main Authors: Smale, Robin, Spaargaren, Gert, van Vliet, Bas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Routledge 04.07.2019; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Batteries; domestic energy; Energy; energy behaviours; Energy management; Heat exchangers; Heat pumps; Households; Project management; Residential energy; Smart grid; Smart grid technology; smart grids; smart homes; Sustainability; technological change; Tours; trust
• ISSN: 0961-3218; 1466-4321
• DOI: 10.1080/09613218.2019.1540548

The potential role of households as 'co-managers' of energy in smart grids is widely discussed in the social science literature. Much remains uncertain about the social relations and practices emerging around novel smart grid technologies and their contribution to sustainability. Drawing on 14 'show-and-tell' home tours with householders in a smart grid trial, an analysis is presented of how home energy management (HEM) is performed in everyday life. The focus is on three technologies: monitoring technologies, smart heat pumps and home batteries. How and why householders do (not) engage with energy management during the pilot project is described. When householders participate in HEM practices, they gain energy management understandings and an awareness of smart grid objectives. Since HEM practices are shared between householders and actors from the energy provision system, they display particular ways of distributing responsibilities, power and agency over technologies, experts and householders. The time and space granted to these three smart grid technologies are shown to depend on the trust relationships between householders and the more or less absent providers of technologies and services. These insights emphasize the need to develop smart grid solutions reflexively with respect to the different spaces and practices in households in which they operate.