Abstract
Within the energy geographies debate on the uneven scalar effects of energy transitions, this article addresses the under-examined, increasing intersection of automation and energy transitions. Using a comparative case of national smart meter rollouts—the deployment of distributed energy monitors whose diffusion constitutes the foundation for layering and automating energy infrastructure—it draws on two contrasting studies. One features an urban living lab during Norway’s rapidly completed smart meter rollout to 2.9 million consumers; the other targets the national scale in Portugal during its recently accelerated two-fifths completed smart meter rollout across six million consumers. The article identifies twin scalar biases: (i) social aspects of automation are controlled at higher scales while users are responsibilised for them at the household scale, and (ii) both control over and responsibility for technical aspects are restricted to higher scales. It empirically specifies how these scalar biases modulate socio-technical infrastructural interventions, such as smart meters. On this basis, it argues that embedding social and technical differentiation due to such scalar biases risks dehumanising technical aspects while detechnicising social aspects in this early intersection of energy transitions and automation.
Highlights
Within the energy geographies debate on the uneven scalar effects of energy transitions, this article addresses the under-examined, increasing intersection of automation and energy transitions
Scholarship has established that these factors modulate how socio-technical interventions impact energy users, how equitable the energy sector is, and whether and how low-carbon energy transitions take place (Wolsink, 2012)
In Portugal, findings focus on the national scale, tracing during 2017–2019 how smart meter rollout was modulated through a top-down process (Coutinho et al, 2017) to twofifths of six million consumer households (2.4 million by September 2019)
Summary
Stories from media reports, from their friends and colleagues, and from grey literature on the sector (Ballo, 2015; Skjølsvold et al, 2015). Despite various contrasts between the two cases, they show remarkable similarity: control for both social and technical aspects rests predominantly at the national scale; responsibility for social aspects is placed at the household scale; and responsibility for technical aspects remains at the national scale To discuss this based on the analysis above: living lab participants in Norway felt responsibilised to manage the social aspects of smart meters themselves (or at least of the simulator, which closely mirrored such an intervention almost simultaneous to the actual rollout). The complexity of these social aspects was poorly represented in the national discussion, which only incorporated debate on health and privacy concerns to a limited extent, even as households were forced to accept the intervention (Ballo, 2015; Inderberg, 2015). Household participants felt excluded from any real influence on this in Norway (Sareen and Rommetveit, 2019), whereas in Portugal, control remained with experts; it was not regarded as part of a broader social concern
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