As policy and market drivers of decarbonisation accelerate the uptake of distributed energy resources, the need for rapid electricity system responsiveness to the variability of wind and solar supply and variable demand increases. Leveraging the full capacity of this growing, but highly distributed resource requires real-time automated access to the energy sources situated within residential and small-scale commercial systems. Without automation, demand side management is unlikely to provide the electricity system with the fast-acting response needed to manage changing network and system requirements.

Background

Typically, demand side management (DSM) for private homes treat households as a homogeneous group and neglect the different motivations, needs and scope of action potential of different consumer groups. This was one of the core results of the previous Task SLA 1.0 and has led to a lack of target group-specific incentive mechanisms and participation opportunities. How diversity of consumption and decision-making patterns of different user groups can be taken into account in the context of DSM, addressed in a gender- and diversity-specific manner, and integrated via participation offers for different flexibility potentials. In this regard, energy communities could be a powerful concept for addressing a great diversity of citizens collectively and foster trust towards energy efficiency applications and demand side management mechanisms. Therefore, in this project, community-based energy projects are analysed as a promising instrument for promoting acceptance through incremental participation.

Objectives

The aim of the Task ‘Social License to Automate 2.0’ (SLA 2.0) is to provide in-depth knowledge and stakeholder-specific recommendations on how to promote user acceptance and the granting of a social license to automate in the context of DSM programs.

Methodology

By building and sharing knowledge through case study analysis and expert collaboration across the participating countries, the Task constitutes a platform for reflective, cutting-edge interdisciplinary research to facilitate exploiting the full potential of energy communiites regarding the obtaining of a social license.

Benefits

Phase 2

Austria:

Lisa Diamond holds a master’s degree in psychology and her research interests focus on the promotion of sustainable behavior with the help of technology in a variety of contexts including the energy and circular economy. Her current work explores user requirements, experience and engagement as well as acceptance and trust promotion in the context of smart and automated technologies such as smart grid applications and automated driving, and user requirements with regards to data privacy and security. Lisa has a special interest in collective engagement approaches.

Giulia Garzon holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Governance and works as a Junior Researcher in the Department of
Economics at the Energy Institute. Her research focuses on energy behaviour and in her work she mostly employs quantitative methods and incorporates gender and diversity perspectives.

Bernadette Fina focused in her PhD on the economic evaluation and optimization of energy communities, within
individual buildings and across building boundaries. She now works as a Scientist at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in the competence unit Integrated Energy Systems. Her field of expertise lies in the simulation and optimization of energy communities, profitability analysis and the legal and regulatory background of energy communities in Europe

Benjmain Kirchler is currently enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Social and Economic Sciences and works as a research associate at the Energy Institute. His research focuses on the impact of behavioral incentives on energy efficiency and energy savings.

Andrea Kollmann is an economist and the Principal Research Coordinator and a Key Researcher at the Energy Institute and regularly publishes in the field of energy and climate economics with a focus on decision-making processes of households, individuals, and businesses.

Switzerland:

Selin Yilmaz is an assistant professor in the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at University of Lausanne. She is an experienced STS researcher with competencies in both theoretical and applied research in the field of energy with inter- and trans-disciplinary methods, with a strong interest in environmental issues and sustainability transitions. She conducts forward-looking research with in-depth analyses of institutions and governance and practice changes in the energy transition experiments to explore the possibility of how these processes and practices can be improved and promoted to accelerate just and inclusive energy transition towards sustainability. She zooms in and zooms out onto micro and macro processes to culminate in more holistic research strategies that help offer more comprehensive and valid explanations for energy transformations.

Ange Martin’s is a PhD student in environmental sciences at the Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne. In his PhD, Ange adopts a sociotechnical perspective, focusing on identifying socio-technical innovations and the resulting socio-technical changes in energy communities in Switzerland Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Employing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodologies, his key research questions include understanding social processes, socio-technical dimensions of renewable energy communities and their indicators, strategies and scales of governance, citizen empowerment to organize energy communities, in which local populations appropriate the question of energy.

Sweden:

Helena Strömberg is senior lecturer in Design, and currently works at Division Design & Human Factors at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. Using user-centered and design inclusive research methodology she explores the new demands that emerge when products and services should enable new sustainable ways of acting, function as a part of sharing services or support more resource efficient interaction patterns.

Norway:

Ida Marie Henriksen holds a PhD in Sociology (social interaction/urban sociology) from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture Energy. Her research is focusing on socio-technical systems, social norms, community questions, methods, and the energy transition.

Jennifer Elise Branlat is associate professor in gender, equality and diversity studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her main research areas are feminist pedagogy and the micro-dynamics of inclusion in higher education.

Yechennan Peng, Ph.D., is currently associated with the Psychology Institute at NTNU. Her research focuses on human behavior within the realm of energy transition and sustainable development, employing an interdisciplinary approach. Her work integrates objective information on regional features and energy technologies with the subjective energy-saving intentions of consumers and the energy transition priorities of planners.

Tomas Moe Skjølsvold is professor of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His main areas of focus are energy transition with a focus on different types of socio-technical systems.

Netherlands: 

Albert Caban currently associated with the Facutly of Technology Policy and Management of TU Delft. Within his PhD research he centres on examining the factors affecting the social acceptance of innovative energy services, such as bi-directional electric vehicle charging technolgoies.

Na Li is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at TU Delft. Her expertise spans the dynamics of electricity markets and susatainable energy systems, addressing key issues like energy system flexibility and socio-econmic aspects of energy communities.

Zofia Lukszo is a full professor of Smart Energy Systems at TU Delft. Her reserach concentrates on a wide range of problems in the way complex energy systems are funtioning and ca be (re-)shaped for the sustainable future.

Ireland:

Bernadette Power is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainablility at Cork University Business School. Her principal research interests are in business economics, entrepreneurship and sustainability. She has a consistent record of securing competitive funding and leading research projects with bodies such as the EPA, SEAI, the IRCHSS and Enterprise Ireland.

John Eakins has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics in University College Cork since 2002. In 2013 John completed a PhD on Irish household energy expenditures at University of Surrey, UK. His main research interests lie in the areas of environmental and energy economics.

Geraldine Ryan is a Senior Lecturer and Vice Dean for Learning & Teaching in Cork University Business School, University College Cork. She undertook her PhD titled “Understanding Asset Values” at University of Warwick UK.Her research centres around the intersection of finance, econmics and sustainability.

Phase 1

Norway: Marianne Ryghaug, Ida Marie Henriksen

Netherlands: Zofia Lukszo, Rishabh Ghotge

Switzerland: Selin Yilmaz, Christian Winzer, Julien L. Michellod

Austria: Tara Esterl, Lisa Diamond, Regina Hemm and Peter Fröhlich

Sweden: Cecilia Katzeff

Australia: Declan Kuch, Sophie Adams

2021

Final report launch webinar

2020

Australian UsersTCP Social Science Workshop (Invitation Only), 3-4 December 2020.

Seminar presentation – ANU Battery Grid Storage Integration Project Willing to Participate in VPP – user report 1 December 2020

Monash Energy Institute webinar on Participation (or not) in automated energy systems, 19 November 2020. Full session on Youtube here

Conference presentation, MoneyLabX Economythologies, 6 November, Canberra, Australia, ‘Thinking Energy As Money’

EASST/4S August 2020 session ‘Socialising the automation of flexible residential energy use’ A conference session report by Sophie Adams, University of New South Wales; Line Kryger Aargaard, Aalborg University; Ingvild Firman Fjellså, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Ida Marie Henriksen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Declan Kuch, Western Sydney University; Sophie Nyborg, Technical University of Denmark; Marianne Ryghaug, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Joint Social Science Researcher submission to Australia’s Technology Investment Roadmap paper Authors: Sophie Adams, University of New South Wales; Sangeetha Chandra-Shekeran, Melbourne University; Rebecca Colvin, Australian National University; Kari Dahlgren, Monash University; Adrian Ford, Melbourne University; Declan Kuch, Western Sydney University; University of New South Wales; Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Australian National University ; Yolande Strengers, Monash University; Hugo Temby, Australian National University; Phillipa Watson, University of Tasmania; Lee White, Australian National University

Conference presentation ‘Insights from the social sciences to understand the customer’s engagement with variable pricing and the prospects for the automation of demand’ at St Gallen Forum for Management of Renewable Energies, St Gallen, Switzerland, September 10-11, 2020

Conference panel, ‘Socialising the automation of flexible residential energy use’ at the Social Studies of Science Society/European Association for the Study of Science and Technology’ Virtual Conference, 18 August 2020. (See report in publications tab)

Conference presentation introducing the Annex at Symposium Energieinnovation, Graz, Austria,12-14 February 2020

2019

UsersTCP Workshop at the Asia-Pacific Solar Research Conference, December 2019, Canberra, Australia. Citizens of which country claim to trust their energy providers most and why? What are the most successful business models for distributed energy provision? Dr Declan Kuch and A/Prof Iain MacGill address these questions and many more to introduce the newly relaunched User-Centred Energy Systems Technology Collaboration Programme (UsersTCP), outlining the Annexes Australia is involved with and leading. The mission of the UsersTCP is to provide evidence from socio-technical research on the design, social acceptance and usability of clean energy technologies to inform policy making for clean, efficient and secure energy transitions.

‘Homing in on the keys to DER integration’, PV Magazine Australia – Natalie Filatoff reports on the relaunch of the User-Centred Energy Systems Technology Collaboration Programme (UsersTCP) at the All Energy conference in Melbourne, Australia in October 2019, and the remit of the new Annex ‘Social Licence to Automate’.

2024

2023

2021

• Social License to Automate Final Report – October 2021 (208 pages)  https://doi.org/10.47568/4XR122
• Social License to Automate Executive Summary – October 2021 (32 pages) https://doi.org/10.47568/4XR123

• Adams, S., Kuch, D., Diamond, L., Fröhlich, P., Henriksen, I. M., Katzeff, C., … & Yilmaz, S. (2021). Social license to automate: A critical review of emerging approaches to electricity demand management. Energy Research & Social Science, 80, 102210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102210 (preprint)

2020

• Solar Analytics Australian research collaboration: VPP Solar + Battery report. November 2020
• EASST/4S August 2020 session ‘Socialising the automation of flexible residential energy use’ A conference session report by Sophie Adams, University of New South Wales; Line Kryger Aargaard, Aalborg University; Ingvild Firman Fjellså, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Ida Marie Henriksen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Declan Kuch, Western Sydney University; Sophie Nyborg, Technical University of Denmark; Marianne Ryghaug, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• Joint Social Science Researcher submission to Australia’s Technology Investment Roadmap paper Joint submission to Australia’s ‘Technology Investment Roadmap’. Authors: Sophie Adams, University of New South Wales; Sangeetha Chandra-Shekeran, Melbourne University; Rebecca Colvin, Australian National University; Kari Dahlgren, Monash University; Adrian Ford, Melbourne University; Declan Kuch, Western Sydney University; University of New South Wales; Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Australian National University ; Yolande Strengers, Monash University; Hugo Temby, Australian National University; Phillipa Watson, University of Tasmania; Lee White, Australian National University
• ‘Towards a Social License to Automate Demand Side Management: Challenges, Perspectives and Regional Aspects’ paper Symposium Energieinnovation conference paper by Peter Fröhlich, Tara Esterl, Sophie Adams, Declan Kuch, Selin, Yilmaz, Cecilia Katzeff, Christian Winzer, Lisa Diamond, Johann Schrammel, Zofia Lukszo and Tony Fullelove
• ‘Towards a Social License to Automate Demand Side Management: Challenges, Perspectives and Regional Aspects’ presentation slides  Symposium Energieinnovation conference presentation by Peter Fröhlich, Tara Esterl, Sophie Adams, Declan Kuch, Selin, Yilmaz, Cecilia Katzeff, Christian Winzer, Lisa Diamond, Johann Schrammel, Zofia Lukszo and Tony Fullelove

2019

• Social License to Automate Task Launch Event Slides –  contains slides from the presentations at the Social License to Automate Task launch event held at UNSW in Sydney on 25 October 2019