7th June 2017
FASS D72/MR11 16.00-18.00
Slides from presentation [.pdf]
Configuring the Urban Smart Grid: Transitions, Experimentation and Governance
Anthony Levenda, DEMAND visitor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society
Arizona State University
In the United States, development of “smart grids” is being pursued as a national policy mandate and goal, promising that the deployment of smart grid technologies – referring in general to digital information and communication technologies that sense, monitor, control and manage the electric grid – will make electricity systems more environmentally sustainable and reliable, and at the same time, provide opportunities for growth and innovation. This seminar will discuss research on three interconnected issues relating to these sociotechnical changes in US electricity infrastructure: the material and discursive construction of the smart grid, urban smart grid experimentation, and the mobility of smart grid models and knowledge. This talk argues for a synthesis between policy mobilities and urban experimentation, highlighting through case studies, how urban smart grid experiments are influenced by experiences and knowledge generated from “vanguard” cities. The research finds that the construction of the smart grid advances and embeds particular logics for the governance of energy and energy transitions, while also reconfiguring the city, engaging in a material politics in order to govern energy transitions.