Smart grids and institutional change_final_paper.pdf (709.13 kB)
Smart grids and institutional change: emerging contestations between organisations over smart energy transitions
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 23:00 authored by Friederike Rohde, Sabine HielscherSmart grids are promoted as promising pathways for dealing with new grid challenges that have arisen by the introduction of renewable energies. In Germany, increasing shares of volatile renewables have led to a growing number of smart grid pilot projects and related regulatory and market developments. Even though, much has been done to develop the smart grid, significant difficulties remain, in particular, the re-negotiation of new roles and responsibilities of the organisational actors involved. From a sociological perspective, these shifts imply changes to current institutional arrangements within energy systems. Drawing on new organisational institutionalism and a qualitative analysis of German smart grid developments, this paper sheds light on organisations’ differing practices aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions (i.e. institutional work). First, we show how organisations’ existing roles, rules, norms, and beliefs are being challenged (or not) through the rise of smart grid technologies and what contestations have arisen within the smart grid field. Second, we analyse how organisations attempt to influence institutional changes and identify five different forms of institutional work conducted by actors in the German smart grid field. The paper demonstrates how organisations within smart grid developments attempt to reconfigure institutional arrangements in diverging or even contradictory ways. The paper reveals how the re-institutionalisation processes related to smart grids require fundamental changes in the common meaning system. Implementing these changes will remain a challenge if actors try to maintain existing institutional arrangements.
Funding
SOCIAL INNOVATION IN ENERGY TRANSITIONS: Co-creating a rich understanding of the diversity, processes, contributions, success and future potentials of social innovation in the energy sector (SONNET); G2690; EUROPEAN UNION; 837498
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Energy Research and Social ScienceISSN
2214-6296Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Volume
74Page range
1-11Article number
a101974Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2021-02-09First Open Access (FOA) Date
2022-02-24First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2021-02-08Usage metrics
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