When the Wind Blows
Louise Buch Løgstrup defends her PhD dissertation:
"Reconceptualising understandings of agency within the designing of demand-side management in a future electricity SMART grid"
The main research question in the thesis is: In what way does an Energy Company understand private energy end user agency; in the designing of demand-side management (balancing energy demand and energy supply), in a future electricity SMART grid infrastructure? And how can a co-analytic design anthropological approach reconceptualise the understanding of private energy end user agency, in the designing of demand-side management in a future electricity SMART grid infrastructure within the company? The main argument of the thesis is that existing ways of designing a future electricity SMART grid in a Scandinavian Energy Company are detached from the social. A central issue here, is that outmoded relations between the Energy Company and private energy end users is based upon past and present marketing and engineering system paradigms.
The thesis argues that a design anthropological research framework; combining participant observation, action anthropology, anthropology methodology and design anthropological research inquiry, can instigate reflection and reflexivity within an Energy Company, towards reconceptualization of the Energy Company’s understanding of designing demand-side management and thereby contribute with an alternative process of designing energy infrastructure.
Collaboration partner: DONG Energy Power A/S
