Re-assembling infrastructures from below. The agency of households in the sustainable energy transition

Abstract

High shares of renewable energy generation, digitalisation, and increased electrification are putting energy systems in flux. In this article we examine the ways households actively re-configure energy system relations at the local level and become agents in the ongoing energy transition. Drawing on assemblage theory, we foreground processes of emergence, the multiplicity of current configurations and the assemblage work required to create new infrastructure constellations. Through semi-structured interviews with households in Sweden and on-site visits we explore different situations where ambitions and desires of households, energy system actors and data service providers intersect and create particular logics of change. While assemblage work may result in households temporarily gaining greater agency by pursuing ideas of self-sufficiency, controlling their bills or the convenience of controlling devices, utilities and app providers also try to tap into this assemblage and integrate it towards a different logic of electricity grid governance or the data economy.