Governing futures of energy infrastructure – Understanding smart-grid futures and its experimental reshaping from a complexity-informed research perspective

Visions and expectations of urban smart grid technologies have contributed substantially to urban energy futures that are perceived to be both sustainable and desirable. In contrast to traditional centralized power grids, future electricity systems are supposed to integrate volatile renewable energy resources (e.g. wind and solar) while dealing with fluctuating local production sites and new increased loads (e.g. electric vehicles and heat pumps). As depicted in a widely held imaginary, a solution to the challenges outlined can be the introduction of smart grids that integrate information and communication technologies (ICT’s) to electricity systems and are supposed to offer physical as well as economic benefits. Visions and expectations linked to smart grids are pivotal for policies of urban low-carbon transitions in various European countries. In the recent past, a considerable number of pilots for experimenting with smart grid technologies in diverse and dynamic stakeholder settings were set up across Europe. As a result, visions and expectations were shaped in local contexts according to both a discursive level leading to the conduction of smart grid experiments and a performative level manifesting visions and expectation along processes. ... mehrOutcomes of smart grid experiments have been reshaping smart grid futures beyond context and time, as experiments conducted in a later point in time may refer to earlier outcomes. Consequently, visions and expectations are shape and reshaped by continuous repetition and diffusion linked to contextualized experimental practices.
For governing smart grid experiments, it is important to understand how visions and expectations are emerging according to coevolutionary processes. By applying a complexity-informed research perspective that integrates context and time, understanding about trajectories of visions and expectations can be improved. Such a perspective would add analytical rigor to the assessment of futures and dynamics of its circulation.
The presentation refers to empirical data gathered from concluded smart grid experiments in European countries between 2008 and 2018.