The ROLES project found that, contrary to popular belief, digitalising our energy systems is actually entrenching inequality. Making those systems more inclusive is key to reversing this.

We won’t reach net zero without smart meters

For Professor Adrian Smith, who led a team of researchers on the ROLES project, getting to net zero means we’re going to have to use digital energy technologies. That means things like smart meters, smart homes, and other kinds of digital home energy management systems.

 This is because one of the major challenges of shifting to renewable energies is coping with a more intermittent energy supply, with peaks and troughs.

 When enough people use them, digital energy technologies can help with this. They  can help us shift our energy-use patterns to when supply is abundant, and ensure we have what we need when it’s scarce. But, crucially, they can only do this if enough people actually use these technologies.

 A growing backlash to digital energy technologies

 In some circles, there has been a lot of enthusiasm about the potential of digital energy technologies to democratise and equalise energy.

 But Professor Smith and his ROLES team found that digitalisation can actually make energy systems less democratic and more unequal – creating suspicion, frustration, and sowing the seeds of a potential backlash.

 Where this frustration comes from 

 This frustration is rooted in the same thing  makes digital energy technologies so promising: flexibility.

 The great promise of digital technologies is that they allow us to flex our energy use-patterns (through either automation or behaviour change) and manage an intermittent energy supply.

 But not everyone is flexible about energy in the same ways or at the same time. Shift workers don’t control when their shifts are. People needing oxygen machines can’t suspend their illness. And other cultural, economic, and social factors influence when energy-use is non-negotiable and when it isn’t.

 This isn’t something that governments and energy companies are taking into account. Current pilot projects offer market-based incentives – like higher and lower prices – to encourage people to use more energy when renewable energy is abundant, and less when it’s scarce.

 But for Professor Smith, market-based incentives alone won’t create the flexibility we need, precisely because flexibility isn’t distributed equally. They will just result a more unequal society where the most vulnerable pay the highest tariffs.

Opening closed doors

ROLES’ research suggests that a more inclusive, participatory approach to systems design would make digital energy technologies more likely to fulfil their promise.

When it comes to energy, officials tend to make key decisions behind closed doors with industry experts. This often leads to implementation plans that focus too much on early adopters, who are generally wealthier, and don’t have the same energy needs as the rest of their community.

A better rollout of digital energy technologies would take more people’s energy needs into account.

And this is something industry experts aren’t experts in  – ordinary citizens are. That’s why bringing a more diverse range of people into the design stage is more likely to result in an energy system that people will happily participate in.

Participation isn’t always easy

Getting to a place where citizens can meaningfully participate in energy system design is going to require creative thinking from all of us.

Policymakers and energy companies will need to think about ensuring that even the quietest voices are included in the conversation – through experimenting with things like community planning and citizens assemblies.

And, as citizens and residents, we should all think about how to make our voices heard too.  As ROLES researcher Dr Marie Claire Brisbois explains, this could even involve us reflecting on political power relations, and how we can effectively use (or expand) the influence we have.

Flexibility as a shared resource

So what might a more inclusive digitalised energy system ultimately look like?

For Professor Smith, one promising possibility is that we switch from thinking about energy users as individual consumers to thinking about them as communal producers.

The idea behind this suggestion is that digitalised net zero energy systems won’t only run on renewable energies. They will also run on something else we share in common – our flexibility.

 Seeing people’s flexibility as a resource that is shared across neighbourhoods and communities, and as something communities are actively contributing to the energy grid, would move us away from punishing individual households with higher prices when flexing simply isn’t possible. It could help us generate more thoughtful, effective energy incentives than the market-based incentives currently offered to individual households.

 Read more about this in ROLES’ policy toolkit, available here.