Emerging e-Practices, Information Flows and the Home: A Sociological Research Agenda on Smart Energy Systems

Vliet, B.J.M. van; Naus, Joeri; Smale, Robin; Spaargaren, Gert

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28077-6_14

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Social practice theory, which has been developed over the last decades within the sociology of consumption, places shared, routinized types of behaviours at the centre of analysis (Warde, 2005). When applied to social practices of the production, consumption and management of domestic electricity in a domestic or decentralized setting, such practices may be understood as energy practices (Van Vliet, Naus, Smale, & Spaargaren, 2016). It is useful to distinguish between energy consuming (or consumption) practicessuch as doing the laundry, watching television or cookingand HEM practices (Naus 2017).…”

Section: Hem: a Social Practice Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Householders co-managing energy systems: space for collaboration?

Smale

Spaargaren

Vliet

2018

Building Research & Information

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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 'showand-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.

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Section: Hem: a Social Practice Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Householders co-managing energy systems: space for collaboration?

Smale

Spaargaren

Vliet

2018

Building Research & Information

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“…Social practices are understood as "temporally evolving, open-ended sets of doings and sayings" (Schatzki, 2002, p. 87), consisting of interconnected elements: know-how and embodied habits, institutionalized knowledge, engagements (including emotions), and technologies (Gram- Hansen, 2010). When applied to social practices of the production, consumption and management of domestic electricity in a domestic or decentralized setting, such practices may be understood as energy practices (Van Vliet, Naus, Smale, and Spaargaren, 2016). It is useful to distinguish between energy consuming (or consumption) practices -such as doing the laundry, watching television or cooking -and home energy management (HEM) practices (Naus 2017).…”

Section: Searching the Human Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Performance or non-performance of certain energy practices to some extent reflects the normative objectives of energy use held by householder-practitioners, and their emotional experiences of performing those practices. Based on the works of Shove (2003) and Van Vliet et al (2005) on domestic practices, several established teleoaffectivities can be indicated: comfort, economy, autonomy, sustainability and safety (of supply). In practice, energy practices may be oriented towards and motivated by one or, more likely, a mix of these teleoaffectivities, varying from household to household.…”

Section: Domestic Energy Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Practice theory is employed to analyse energy practices as the shared, routinized types of behaviours which involve "the production, distribution, storage, monitoring and use of domestic electricity in a domestic or decentralised setting" (Van Vliet et al, 2016). From a social practice perspective, the home is understood as a set of interdependent practices -for example, doing the laundry, showering, cooking, or watching TV -that fulfil specific domestic tasks (Shove, 2003;Gregson et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the monitoring of domestic energy flows, the utilization of new smart meters and smart appliances) and adaptations of existing practices (i.e. adapting the timing of laundry practices to moments of abundant solar energy supply) (Van Vliet et al, 2016). Strengers (2013) raises concerns associated with these practices and what they represent: an inadequate depiction of householders as resource optimizers, rooted in misunderstandings of householder agency; and a Foucauldian imposition of a 'smart management' discourse which does not reflect the diversity of competing visions of sustainable domestic energy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Smart grids the human scale : Investigating householder participation in the decentralization, digitalization and decarbonization of energy grids in the Netherlands

Smale¹

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Stable, affordable and sustainable electricity production, transportation and consumption are crucial to the functioning of any modern society. Nowadays, utility providers face technical, environmental, and societal challenges in securing the taken-for-granted services the energy grid is expected to provide to household. The electrification of daily life, especially in the sphere of mobility (EVs) and electrified heating, in combination with the rise of decentralized renewable generation (rooftop solar), places increasing pressure on the electricity distribution grid. This challenge goes together with an unprecedented pressure on the energy sector to reduce its climate impact in the next decades.Smart grids are heralded as promising socio-technical innovation and a comprehensive solution for making the energy grid more flexible and green (Yu et al., 2011;Darby et al., 2013). A smart grid can be defined as "a socio-technical network characterised by the active management of both information and energy flows, in order to control practices of distributed generation, storage, consumption and flexible demand" (Wolsink, 2012, p. 824). Smart grids innovations presume the involvement of householders, who, by conserving, monitoring, and timing their consumption with the help of various smart technologies and information flows, contribute to the sustainability and stability of the electricity grid. To realize flexible grid management and decarbonization as key objectives of smart grids, domestic practices of (energy) consumption will undergo significant change. Without the engagement of householders these changes are unlikely to be achieved.In light of these developments and the maturation of smart grid technologies, policy-makers, technology designers and infrastructure planners are in need for knowledge regarding the factors that determine the specific ways in which householders (co-) shape their everyday life involvement in smart grids (Verbong et al. 2013;Skjølsvold and Lindkvist, 2015; Geelen et al., 2016). In what -both individual and organized -ways, to what extent and with what kind of ideas, moods, values and emotions are householders gradually becoming engaged with the key objectives of smart grid developments? To answer this set of questions, communities of experts, including engineers, grid managers, (social-)psychologists and behavioural economists, have applied different perspectives and methods in the search for pathways towards the social embedding of smart grids in the everyday lives of situated households. So far, technology design, economic modelling and nudging individual behaviours have emerged as core features for Research aim and research questionsThe following three main research questions underlie the proceeding chapters 2 to 5 and will be answered in concluding Chapter 6. Complexity of householder agencyAs described in section 1.1, complexities with respect to householder agency in smart grids is found on two (equally important and interrelated) levels: (1) householders' (behavioural) response to ...

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