Mobilizing smart grid experiments: Policy mobilities and urban energy governance

Abstract

Cities across the US have been looking to urban experiments as a way to demonstrate potential pathways for carbon control, economic development, and resilience. On their own, these experiments are often small in scale and highly localized, embodying a piecemeal approach to urban development and climate governance. In this paper, I examine the relationship between urban experimentation and policy mobilities to understand how these projects have broader significance for climate governance and urban development. Drawing together empirical data from a multisited case study of smart grid experiments in Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; and Chicago, Illinois, I show how governmental rationalities are mobilized, mutated, and transmitted in the processes of urban learning, extrospection, and consultation. While the imperative of cities to respond to climate change is ever more central to urban politics and governance, I find that the logics of experimentation are tied to specific governmental rationalities and norms of conduct that embed limited notions of citizen involvement and engagement in policy. The paper outlines how three elements of an Austin smart grid model—users as test-bed, test-bed as platform, and test-bed as epistemology—reinforce these logics and rationalities. The implications for urban climate and energy governance are outlined stressing three synergies between urban experiments and policy mobilities approaches.