Good-by-Devicing
- Probing how value comes to matter in the energy transition.
In Good-by-Devicing, we explore valuation struggles in the transition to renewable energy. In particular, we explore how valuations of local citizens, nature and justice might be included much earlier on in the design of the green transition, so that the stalemate at the planning and development phase is avoided. The case for this research is the Danish Energy Islands, and in particular, Energy Island Bornholm.
While there is a push for accelerating the green transition, many renewable energy projects stall in the planning and development phase where it seems impossible to accommodate valuations other than techno-economic ones. Probing the question of “what is the value of energy transition”, we trace and follow the design tools (valuation devices) that are used to, for example, create energy scenarios, simulate technology’s performance, and procure renewable energy capacity. These tools play a role in construing certain technology-based markets as ‘good’ (cf. Asdal et al. 2021; Asdal and Huse 2023). We ask for whom and for what the energy transition is being designed as ‘good’.
Based on an ethnographic inquiry into the networks of expertise that develop and deploy critical design tools (valuation devices), we trace the processes of deciding which valuations and concerns should ‘come to matter’. That is, we follow how certain valuations and concerns are included and excluded from the design tools, and with what consequences.
Probing if the energy transition could be value ‘otherwise’ – potentially including broader social and environmental values – we end by experimenting with those valuations that are excluded through interventionist co-production workshops so that they may be addressed much earlier on in the process. Such intervention may require reconfiguration not only of entrenched networks of expertise, but also their devices.
Good-by-Devicing combines perspectives from Valuation Studies and Networks of Expertise with the notion of ‘the good economy’, to coin a new “Sociology of Devicing”, which can move the extant literature on Social Acceptance further. With this we aim to uncover not only entrenched networks of expertise in the energy transition, but also alternative networks of expertise, probing if broader (and often more qualitative) concerns and valuations can come to count in how energy transitions are orchestrated. Hereby, ‘the good energy transition economy’ may be construed otherwise, holding promise for energy justice.
