ELEXIA – other systems to think with

Social scientists studying energy repeatedly pointed out that the people affected most adversely by climate change and the energy transition are often those who have also been most exploited and marginalised, historically and currently, while contributing the least to the climate crises.

Consider, for example, indigenous communities displaced for hydroelectric dams, people forced out by land grabs for solar farms, or the labour exploitation that is part of the rush for raw materials for ‘green growth’. What makes a good life for the wealthy often comes at the expense of the poor.

But the energy transition is an opportunity to change the way we think about work, freedom and what we imagine the 'good life' to be. What is it we (collectively) want, and how do we (variously) imagine our futures?

Resource men, smart wives and flexibility women

One way to understand how just a few perspectives define energy systems, and where macro level injustices translate into our daily lives, is with the 'Resource man' – a rational micro resource manager of energy imagined by energy providers as disconnected from the negotiations and frustrations of daily chores. [1]

Resource man manages the household with smart devices, meters and monitors and ideas of optimal usage. The resource man, a competent human, has recently been joined by the 'Smart wife', AI powered home devices that take on the labour traditionally performed by women in the household.

Resource man and smart wife quickly run into trouble when confronted with realities of daily life, such as disagreements over how warm or cool different members of the family like to be at home or unforeseen events. In fact, automation is often overridden by users, whether due to unusual weather or major life events such as births, deaths or health issues.

In contrast, the concept of 'Flexibility woman' shows the interactive and emotional labour that goes into energy management in the home, and, we would add, beyond the household. Flexibility woman has intricate knowledge of how to manage daily life that saves energy, not through automation but using the human ability to adjust, improvise and understand complex relationships.

This echoes research showing that while consumers first rely on suppliers’ flashy apps for new solar panels, they quickly revert to simple cues, like checking if the sun is out before running the washing machine.

While many embrace automating tedious chores, smart wives mistakenly assume emotional labour can be outsourced too, devaluing the often-female work of nurturing home life. Devices handle 'technicalities', but true domestic care is nuanced; simple outsourcing falls short, as flexibility woman illustrates. Smart wives conceal the complexities, frustrations and joys of emotional labour; and the hidden costs of smart tech, e‑waste, labour exploitation, data insecurity and extractive resource practices.

You might wonder why this gendered language? Sadly, gendered stereotypes persist, and at the same time they act as a shorthand for the deep inequalities woven into our energy systems, urging a shift in how we think.

In ELEXIA we are developing new tools, from a data lake to a flexibility function, that enable new relationships and solidarities between humans, more/other than humans and technologies. This puts us in an ideal position to subvert and challenge the status quo by drawing on concepts that investigate 'innovation' and 'optimisation', offering new pathways.

Intersectional feminist energy systems

For this task, we reach for intersectional feminist scholarship. Despite the name, it is not about 'women’s rights' or getting 'some women' to manager solar farms. Intersectional feminist models allow us to think more broadly about inequalities, encompassing anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, anti-ageist and indigenous thinking. 

For decades, feminist theory has interrogated power across systems, offering insights that apply to every facet of energy research. This means recognising that the energy transition involves more than technological deployment and goes beyond quantifying renewable energy projects. A just energy transition is about the realities we choose to imagine for ourselves and for future generations.

In feminist system thinking, low carbon activities, such as art, music and leisure are valued as much as carbon intensive activities that involve production of goods and services, even if the latter are more highly valued in capitalist terms. So we can ask, what do we really value? 

Energy systems informed by feminist thinking fully acknowledge human variation; they are bottom-up, decentralised, and multidirectional. That means openness to the widest variation in ways of being. The resource man, smart wife and flexibility woman expose how current design practices flatten diverse lived realities into a singular, efficiency-driven model. To move beyond this means considering what we value and this can be done through four dimensions. [2]

Politically, we might put emphasis on searching for an inclusive consensus. Rather than letting a handful of engineers or policy experts set the agenda, in ELEXIA we aim for multiplicity by developing policy recommendations in conversation with tool-developers, municipalities and academics.

Economically, we can foreground market dynamics that foster wellbeing and biodiversity. Here, ELEXIA’s Norwegian pilot has the opportunity to consider what a 'good life' looks like for a new city quarter and how energy systems (e.g. offering green public spaces), business models (like wellbeing credits), and market designs (such as time‑of‑use pricing that nudges low‑energy activities – gardening, art, evening workouts) can support it.

Socio-ecologically, we can ask ourselves as tool developers, energy researchers and modellers how the models we develop can incorporate a culture of care? Can our models account for socio-ecological values? Despite its complexity, by bringing qualitative social research into conversation with quantitative modelling and technological tool development, ELEXIA can begin considering what wellbeing-oriented energy systems might look like.

Technologically, ELEXIA is uniquely placed to consider, at every step, how we might develop more diverse and multiple technologies. Conversations between tool developers and users are cornerstones in this. 

In ELEXIA we see that a European energy transition requires a holistic approach that transcends tools and technologies. By incorporating intersectional feminist perspectives when innovating and optimising energy systems, we aim to create a more sustainable as well as a more equitable future. 

References

1. Strengers, Yolande (2023). ‘Resource Man and the Smart Wife: Implications for Sustainability in the Home’, Interactions 30, No. 2, 39.

2. Bell, Shannon Elizabeth et al (2020). ‘Toward Feminist Energy Systems: Why Adding Women and Solar Panels Is Not Enough’, Energy Research & Social Science, 68.

About the authors