Global trends in the political economy of smart grids: A tailored perspective on ‘smart’ for grids in transition

Abstract

The global transition towards sustainable, secure, and affordable electricity supply is driving changes in the consumption, production, and transportation of electricity. This paper shows the different policy aims that are promoted with smart grids in Europe, the United States, and China. In all cases, the developments are motivated by the possible improvements in reliability and affordability yielded by smart grids, while sustainability of the electricity sector is not a central motivation.

L’utopie de la gouvernance en temps réel des villes : « Big data » et nouvelles politiques de l’énergie de la Métropole de Lyon

“…L'implémentation du « Smart grid » par les acteurs historiques de l'énergie fait partie des tendances mondiales de l'économie politique du secteur énergétique (Arent et al, 2017;Eid, Hakvoort, & Jong, 2016).…”

Social and technical differentiation in smart meter rollout: embedded scalar biases in automating Norwegian and Portuguese energy infrastructure

“…Spatiotemporal concerns around energy flexibility are rife in technical scholarship (Lund et al, 2017); business models are evolving to capitalise on the opportunity posed by cost declines in energy storage and renewable energy sources through new algorithms and energy data infrastructures for dynamic pricing (Hashem et al, 2016). A question arises whether these changes will reconfigure prevalent energy supply logics (Eid et al, 2016). Nowhere is this more keenly relevant than in societal debates about smart meters, which have excited interest and proved contentious (Sareen and Rommetveit, 2019;Stephens et al, 2013).…”