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CenSES annual report 2014
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Marianne Ryghaug, William Throndsen and Tomas Skjølsvold has been working
on the IHSMAG project (Intergrating Households in the Smart Grid)this year.
Skjølsvold has as a part of this project written an article about the previous
future of smart grid technology.
The study has analysed a ten-year long technology debate, which dealt with
the so-called advanced electricity meters in Norway (1998–2008). This debate
circled around one central question: should the implementation of this tech-
nology be forced through regulations or should the market decide on pace and
character of implementation? In 2008 it was decided that it was best to
regulate the implementation. Throughout these 10 years, the debate was
largely concerned with how the future would look with or without regulation.
Images of futures may be performative in the sense that when “the future” is
presented, this influences present action and navigation. With this in mind, the
study has analysed future visions and expectations as they were formulated
in the smart grid technology debate. It has traced the role of these futures in
the policy debate and their e ects on the policy outcome. Two modes of the
performativity of imaginations of the future have been identi ed: (1) translative
and (2) transformative images of futures. Translative images of futures are often
mobilized as spokespersons for desired technology or policy trajectories. Here,
they work as (a) stage setting devices: sparking debate, enrolling new actors in
the debate and generating interest. Further, they work as (b) regulative tools:
establishing the need for political decisions, either to realize the content of
future visions, or to avoid the contents of alternative futures. Transformative
images of futures domore subtle and gradual work, shifting the practical, symbolic
and cognitive meaning of ‘‘what’’ the technology in question might become in
the future.
In the Norwegian debate, one crucial question was whether a future with
advanced meters could be justi ed in societal economic terms. For years, it
was impossible to justify large scale implementation with economic models.
However, as the technology matured, and increasingly complex technological
futures were imagined, Norwegian citizens were ascribed increasing levels of
economic rationality. While future practice change could not be quanti ed, the
“non-quanti able” ideas about the relationship between input (information)
and (changed) electricity consumption became rhetorically very powerful.
The previous future of smart grid technology