Smart energy, smart living Elizabeth Shove, Lancaster University The promise: To give an informed view on how all the different threads of energy generation and use combine for the smart house, workplace and lifestyle. Energy demand reduction, low carbon emissions

What is energy demand? A consequence of technical efficiency and conversion (measured in Joules) A consequence of population, income and some level of technological development/efficiency. A ‘resource’ that energy/mobility providers can manipulate and mobilise, e.g. in managing load profiles through demand response or demand reduction – negawatts and negumption An outcome of the social, infrastructural and institutional ordering of what people do. A more or less predictable ‘need’ which the grid/road/rail infrastructures have to meet

The need for electricity is made one practice at a time. Hughes: Networks of Power, Energy is never used in the abstract Picture of electrified kettle

Energy is used in accomplishing social practices at home, at work and in moving around (e.g. heating, commuting, shopping, laundering, cooling etc.). Social practices and related systems and infrastructures of provision constitute each other. Generation, provision and use are intertwined. Energy demand and smarter, lower carbon living are consequence of these arrangements. Normal room temperature Patterns of societal synchronisation Car-dependent practices Understanding how energy generation and use combine in making and changing Starting points

From person heating to space heating Average room temperature of 13° Celsius (55°F) in the UK in Social conventions of comfort are changing all the time. Design and engineering are implicated in making and not just ‘meeting’ needs. Fanger’s equationThere is nothing natural about 22°C. How energy generation, management and use combine Picture of shetland croft and of shetland crofter, in jumper Picture of ole fanger Picture of thermostat at 22

What would be a ‘smarter’ configuration? Heating as a system of elements Waistcoat – representing clothing Heating system Cooling system Building fabric/wall Our skin – the body’s thermoregulatory system

How energy generation, management and use combine What are peaks made of? Societal synchronisation Sequences and flexibilities Trends over time Where does policy influence lie? Balancing supply and demand Decarbonisation/renewables Smart metering Future demand Relation between mobility and energy in buildings Smart grids and smart ways of living

Source: MTUS , Ben Anderson’s calculations, weighted Infrastructures sized for peak Devices in use make peak Resources delivered to meet peak Frequency and synch- ronisation Temporal relation between practices How energy generation, management and use combine

Data from the multi-national time use studies, Finland These graphs show what people are doing at different times of day. They show that France is more ‘synchronised’ than Finland. Especially at lunchtime. Such patterns matter for what happens when, and hence for peak demand. Societal synchronisation France Again, this is not a matter of individual choice and decision making or about technological. Nor is it about introducing more efficient technology. Is smarter living a matter of ‘flatter’ living? Night time Saturday mornings Monday mornings Evenings Employment policy and smarter living?? Lunch time

To understand demand we need to understand social practices and how they change What are cars for? Which practices are car-dependent practices? Pictures of tesco express, white van, people at a gym, home office, credit cards

12% of all distance travelled Rapidly changing sector with implications for demand and timing of demand Types of shopping: cars and cargo mobility intensity from 2005 time use data = likelihood of travelling before and after activity; car modal share: Likelihood of using car; size of circles indicates prevalence of each type

Shop/goods, Shopping trolley System of food provisioning Urban planning Roads, networks of fuel Car design and boot space Fuel, efficiency Size, scale, packaging, frequency How do infrastructures, devices and resources intersect:? E.g. Food shopping, cargo and car-dependence How energy generation, management and use combine

Focusing on efficiency obscures the ways in which technologies constitute demand tends to have no history (what is the reference point?) isolates technologies – the freezer not the food system, the car not car-dependence Efficient technologies often help reproduce unsustainable patterns of demand A+ energy rating fridge-freezer-stainless-steel aspx Picture of huge fridge freezer

Attitude Behaviour Choice Dynamics Infrastructure Practices Regimes Systems Transitions

Strategies for smarter living Beyond energy efficiency and behaviour Should there be a policy of breaking the cold chain? Or of changing office life? Are these energy efficient technologies? How do employment policies structure energy demand? Pic of office work Pic of waistcoat