When smart energy technologies meet everyday household labour: gendered practices and negotiations

Energy systems need to become less carbon intensive under the current pressing conditions of climate change. Residential demand-side flexibility – shifting of household energy consumption, is an important part of this transition. Such changes are to be understood in the context of everyday, routinely performed practices. Regarding household labour as gendered, and building on recent practice-oriented perceptions of gender as a socially constructed element of everyday practices, the paper contributes to insights of how smart grid technologies shape, challenge (and are shaped and challenged by) the performance of everyday household labour. We uncover issues of coordination of household practices in relation to concentration of smart-grid related digital expertise amongst members of households in three European smart grid pilot sites (in the Netherlands, Italy and France). Informed by initial exploratory empirical work, we zoom in on gendered experiences of control, trust (in technological systems and technological system providers), and coping mechanisms in the analysis of interviews and/or focus groups held with residents at these three sites. We include emotional responses as evidence of lived experiences to better understand the diverse reactions of both men and women. We discuss the diverse situated experiences in relation to the coordination of household labour practices, addressing if and how patterns of expertise accumulation and concentration occur and how these relate to increases in new digital dependencies (or even lock-out situations, where household members can no longer control basic energy services in the home themselves). We conclude with a discussion on different ways and possibilities to arrive at more distributed or shared forms of housekeeping – to arrive at more gender-sensitive/inclusive and effective smart grid design