The home exists within, is influenced by, and in turn influences the surrounding electricity system, and sometimes also various intermediary organizational forms such as energy communities. How the interaction between these actors takes shape is influenced by the national and global context. A complementary categorization is based on four different, but not isolated, societal dimensions that affect both the electricity system and the home: the social, technical, economic, and political dimensions. Based on this schematic figure, we develop in the following sections the research questions that form the foundation of the research projects.
The home is an arena for people’s everyday lives and a place of continuity, social relationships, and identity formation. In order to live and carry out everyday activities, we use electrical devices—ranging from heat pumps and solar panels to routers, refrigerators, washing machines, and computers. In addition to power outlets, the primary interface between homes and smart grids consists of the smart meters with which all homes in Sweden are equipped. These enable remote reading of information about a home’s electricity consumption for billing purposes and for the automated control of electricity use, which helps maintain balance in the power grid. However, automated load control can also entail risks and increase vulnerability.
Our acceptance and use of new technology, as well as the ways in which we address major societal challenges—such as transforming the energy system to meet the climate crisis, or our approaches to democracy, justice, and gender equality—are reflected in the design of energy systems in our homes. Technology in the home influences how we carry out everyday tasks, who is responsible for performing them, and who may be excluded. Technology can change norms and power relations. Social relationships and ways of thinking influence choices of technology. The projects within the program therefore focus on the challenges of a changing energy system, taking the home as their point of departure. These challenges have technical and economic dimensions as well as social and political ones.
The energy transition in Sweden shows similarities to transitions in other parts of the world, but also differences. Many technical components—such as solar panels, batteries, mobile phones, and the internet—together with some basic social factors, constitute a shared global platform. At the same time, other technical, economic, social, and political structures differ from country to country, and often within countries between centers and peripheries. An important purpose of an international perspective is therefore to draw lessons from other countries within and beyond Europe and to make use of these experiences in the transformation of the Swedish energy system.
The home is an arena where the social, technical, political, and economic dimensions intersect. On this basis, we develop our research questions from these four dimensions.
