Projects
Projects: Custom Search |
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| Reference Number | ES/Z503757/1 | |
| Title | Household and community labour in smart local energy systems | |
| Status | Started | |
| Energy Categories | Renewable Energy Sources 20%; Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research (Demographics) 10%; Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research (Energy system analysis) 10%; Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research (Environmental, social and economic impacts) 60%; |
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| Research Types | Basic and strategic applied research 100% | |
| Science and Technology Fields | SOCIAL SCIENCES (Sociology) 100% | |
| UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation | Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy 100% | |
| Principal Investigator |
Dr AP (Adrian ) Smith No email address given Science Policy Research Unit University of Sussex |
|
| Award Type | Standard | |
| Funding Source | ESRC | |
| Start Date | 01 October 2024 | |
| End Date | 31 March 2027 | |
| Duration | 30 months | |
| Total Grant Value | £835,175 | |
| Industrial Sectors | ||
| Region | South East | |
| Programme | Grants | |
| Investigators | Principal Investigator | Dr AP (Adrian ) Smith , Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex (99.999%) |
| Other Investigator | Dr CE Johnson , Head Office, Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) (0.001%) |
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| Web Site | ||
| Objectives | ||
| Abstract | Context: Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES) are critically important for the UK transition to net zero. Developing through a variety of demonstration projects and niche markets, SLES use new technologies, digitalisation and market incentives to maximise household consumption of locally generated renewable electricity by flexibly managing demand and storage amongst neighbours. Research to date has looked at the engineering, organisational and marketing aspects of SLES, with households conceived in terms of their ability to invest in the assets and skills needed to become smart customers. Whilst useful, it is an approach that completely overlooks the 'energy housekeeping' work that system operators need from households in order for the former's designs to be effective.Aims: This project analyses the work households and communities do to domesticate SLES technologies and use them flexibly. In doing so, the project explores what kinds of rewarded and unrewarded labour households and communities contribute to the production of SLES, and how that work is distributed within and across households and communities. Applying a labour process analysis, we will study activities like learning to work with the technologies, rearranging domestic chores, and supporting neighbouring households, in order to better understand the value such work contributes to the system. We will work with community energy organisations and households, who will provide us with qualitative and quantitative information about the support work they both undertake in order to domesticate SLES. Significance: Inspired by feminist scholarship in domestic labour and social reproduction around digitalisation in other sectors, our research posits that human work is the ultimate source of value. We argue that failing to recognise the divisions and changes in domestic and community labour needed to make SLES work risks alienating households and entrenching conflicts that will undermine the high levels of participation needed across 28 million households for effective SLES.Impact on policy and practice: The research team is a partnership between the Sussex Energy Group (SEG) and the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE). Both will work closely with community energy organisations (CEO) who will help fine tune our framework and support access to households in SLES projects. Results will inform CSE policy advocacy on community energy, where a labour-based perspective will provide novel insights for integrating community energy organisations and households into SLES governance. The project will produce three policy briefings, a comic and organise policy and community workshops that engage with our results and debate how new policies can recognise and reward more fairly and inclusively the labour that households and community organisations provide in the operation of SLES. Our research will guide questions about ownership, incentives and benefit sharing. In working with a comic artist, we will produce a visually engaging explanation of these issues. And CSE develop learning resources and an online tutorial for energy professionals that helps them navigate labour-based issues in their work. Academic impact: Our innovative analysis of household and community labour will advance social science research in three areas: 1) contributing labour process analysis to the increasingly important study of energy housekeeping; 2) given SLES are an important component in energy transitions, our analysis will contribute a missing focus on labour to the field of sustainability transitions research; and 3) we will contribute to feminist labour theories an empirical case study of the complexities of energy systems (re)production | |
| Data | No related datasets |
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| Projects | No related projects |
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| Publications | No related publications |
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| Added to Database | 16/10/24 | |
