STIRring the grid: engaging energy systems design and planning in the context of urban sociotechnical imaginaries

Abstract

Since the first electrification systems were established in the United States between 1910 and 1930, energy systems governance at the municipal level has included competing visions for how engineering design and energy policy-making should foster particular social outcomes. Using Phoenix as a representative metropolitan area, and the cases of distributed generation and in-home power management devices as examples, this paper explores how the norms and values embedded in energy systems design and planning shape how residents experience change in the energy grid. Through these case studies, the authors argue that such “sociotechnical imaginaries” – collectively formed visions of social life related to science and technology development – are a crucial, yet overlooked, pathway for social science to engage in fostering socially reflexive mechanisms in energy development. To conclude, the authors outline a research program for applying the established methodology of socio-technical integration research (STIR) in order to develop socially reflexive capacities in municipal energy producing, regulating, and planning institutions. Such a program has the ability to produce a deeper intellectual understanding of how energy development occurs, and in doing so generate new pathways for fostering cultural and material changes in the structure of contemporary energy systems.

Keywords:

• energy
• electricity
• renewables
• smart grid
• imaginaries
• urban
• sociotechnical
• integration
• governance
• policy

Notes

1. The exception to this is the work on social movements – as Hess (2015) points out, there are many synergies between Social Movement Studies (SMS) and Sociotechnical Imaginaries. We agree with his emphasis on tracing the social position and power dynamics underlying the production of imaginaries, and will address this element in more depth during subsequent STIR Cities studies.

2. Studies since the first Oil Crisis in the 1970s also indicate that lower income families in urban areas tend to be the first to cut their energy consumption when prices rise, indicating that these individuals and families are conscious energy consumers, albeit unwillingly (see Unseld et al. 1979).

3. These exceptions, however, do not apply to multiple renters splitting a bill via M-Power^® – as a 2015 Arizona Republic article showed (Randazzo 2015b). The lack of an explicit mechanism for addressing these split-bill outcomes is peculiar, given M-Power^® explicitly targets students and other non-related multi-person renters for the program.

4. For the purposes of anonymity this list is comprised of high-level organizational examples of potential sites, as opposed to the specific sites our study will include.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under [grant number 1535120] and the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University.