Tech Talk | Smart grids and the importance of the four ‘Ds’

Of the four ‘Ds’ democratisation appears to be the key one to focus on for shaping public support for smart grids at local and national levels.

With the energy transition focussed on what has become known as the four ‘Ds’ – i.e. decarbonisation, decentralisation, digitalisation and democratisation – and public support critical for its success, questions arise on issues such as public awareness and expectations that can drive this support.

While much effort has been put into creating awareness of smart meters by utilities embarking on rollouts and thereafter into how energy consumption can be monitored and managed, less appears to have been done on the broader aspects of the energy transition.

This topic, apparently little researched, has now formed the focus of an investigation led by social scientists at the University of Strathclyde, based on surveys in two different countries, the UK and Canada, conducted respectively in 2021 and 2022.

The main questions focussed on the degree to which people support the development of new local smart grids, the degree to which they support elements of the four Ds and which of those four Ds best explains their support or opposition towards these new energy systems.

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Findings showed that support was high in both countries but significantly higher in Canada both at local and national levels, at around three-quarters, compared to about two-thirds in the UK.

Support also was high for the four Ds in both countries, being highest for decarbonisation in both and lowest for democratisation in the UK while in Canada support was similar for decentralisation, digitalisation and democratisation.

More specifically also in the UK issues around comfort in sharing data, concern about climate change, excitement about new technology and household income emerged as important factors while in Canada comfort in sharing data and concern about climate change emerged as the most important.

The researchers comment that the differences between the two countries could be attributed to the timing of the surveys, with changing geopolitics such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact in energy prices between them, or to more cultural or political factors such as electricity being of subnational jurisdiction in Canada.

They also note the high number of people who are apparently ambivalent, over a quarter in UK and about a fifth in Canada, and with particularly elevated levels of ambivalence around democratisation.

Without going into all the modelling details, which are addressed in the report in the journal Oxford Open Energy, what do the results indicate?

According to the researchers, they show the importance of support for two of the four Ds – decentralisation and democratisation – in shaping the overall support for smart and local energy system change, with support for digitalisation showing a modest influence in the larger UK sample.

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Democratising energy

Combined with the literature looking at support for clean and renewable energy projects, the researchers suggest that if governments, developers and other stakeholders want to maximise support for the upcoming changes to the energy system, democratising energy is a key part of the solution.

This is partially because it can be argued that the changes associated with the other three Ds are inevitable, i.e. that energy systems are becoming cleaner (decarbonised), closer to local areas (decentralised) and utilising more smart technology (digitalisation).

However how much local control, decision-making ability, ownership opportunities and associated benefits host communities will have is still a great uncertainty.

Thus multiple groups of people, from academics and community groups to local and national governments, should pay due attention to ensuring that local communities playing home to such fundamental and rapid energy system change are empowered and supported to democratise energy as they see fit.

Does this finding accord with your sense of the energy transition and knowledge of customers? Let us know.

Jonathan Spencer Jones

Specialist writer
Smart Energy International

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