1. What do sociologists know about energy, everyday practices and renewable energy?
Kirsten Gram- Hanssen
SBI, Aalborg University-Copenhagen
12th Conference of the European Sociological Association, ESA
Prague 25th - 28th August, 2015.
I have been asked to talk about…
I doing this I will introduce my own and my colleagues work and the work of international researchers we are inspired by or work together with….

2. Understanding agency in the co-construction of everyday practices and the energy system
Global climate and household everyday practices closely related
Energy provision system and household everyday practices are co-constructed
Structure and agency in understanding this
How to promote sustainable transition?
My talk is called…
Departure in…. What we do every day at home without thinking about it is of major importance so my talk is about understanding all these rutines
Want to show that..
And I will debate the
I also want to concluding at
SBi – 21/09/2018

3. Criticising the energy efficiency approach
This presentation….
Historical approach to energy consumption/production
Practice theory as a way of conceptualising this
Understandings variations in households practices
Debating energy efficiency policies
Criticising the energy efficiency approach
and bring agency into practice theories ….
SBi – 21/09/2018

4. Household appliances arrive
Push from electricity companies and the authorities
Scepticism from the housewives: against culture and pride
The appliances arrive together with the economic grow, women's entrance on the labour market and new urban development
When electricity companies and power plants …
SBi – 21/09/2018

5. Change in routines related to washing and food-preparation
‘When I got my own machine I really changed my washing habits. I washed whenever there was something to wash’
‘When my husband started as an engineer, then we got a refrigerator. But I still shopped from day to day. The major weekly shops first started with the supermarkets and their tempting shelves’
From (Olesen and Thorndahl, 2004)
SBi – 21/09/2018

6. New ICT solutions – in al aspects of everyday life
Strongly promoted by the state and market
New infrastructures of communication
Acquisition because of status or fear of falling behind
Now they are all necessary for all aspects of a normal life
A recent example of changing practices – in the wrong direction
(Røpke & Christensen, 2013;
Røpke, Christensen, Jensen 2010)
SBi – 21/09/2018

7. Smart grid and households?
Renewables in the grid and a need to balance production/consumption
New ICT possibilities and market liberalisation
Intelligent system to improve efficiency and integrate intermittent energy sources
Feedback, load management, peak shaving and “prosumers”
SBi – 21/09/2018

8. Rational resource man – Utopia or Dystopia?
Rational resource man do not exist
Feedback only provide limited interest and savings
Practices are interlinked and thus not time flexible
… but history show that our practices do change together the provision system..
(Nyborg & Røpke, 2013; Strengers, 2012, 2013; Hargreaves et al 2010,2013; Darby, 2010; Walker, 2014…..)
SBi – 21/09/2018

9. Learnings on everyday life and the energy system
Co-production of energy systems and everyday practices in all cases
Unconscious everyday life routines interlinked with infrastructural changes in the energy production system
Everyday practices neither “just natural” nor individually chosen
Changes in households energy consumption must be understood together with changes in social, cultural and technological structures
SBi – 21/09/2018

10. Sociology of consumption, STS and energy
Cultural approaches to consumption…
Ordinary consumption: the routinized and technology bound
STS & ANT to include technologies
Practice theory
So how to understand these everyday routines?
SBi – 21/09/2018

11. The basis of practice theory
Not a commonly agreed upon theory, but a theory in the development…
Practices at the centre of understanding the social
Practices are collective, practitioners are carriers
Examples of practices: cooking and laundering
“Sayings” and “doings” which are hold together…

12. Holding practices together:
Schatzki,1996
Reckwitz, 2002
Warde, 2005
Shove/Pantzar, 2005
Shove et al, 2012…..
Gram-Hanssen, 2010, 2011
Practical understanding
Body
Understandings
Competences
Know-how,
embodied habits
Mind
The agent
Rules
Structure/process
Procedures
Institutionalised
knowledge and rules
Knowledge
Discourse/language
Teleo-affective structures
Engagement
Meanings
Engagements
General Understandings (2002)
Things
Items of
consumption
Products
Technology and infrastructure

13. Insights from practice theory
Embodiment of practices links the individual performance with the collective entities of practices
Practices, and the embodied habits carry the history of material, cultural and social structures
Practices connect to each other in the everyday life
Synchronisation in the time of carrying through practices
So what is the insigths we get fra PT…

14. Energy consumption, is not a practice
….but a prerequisite for, and a bi-product of many different practices
Laundering, cooking, computer gaming…. are practices
Each of these energy consuming practices are “hold together” by quite different elements

15. Change and variation in energy consumption
Change in energy consumption over time – a predominant form of practice theoretical energy studies
Studying variation in practices – a more “classical” sociological consumption approach
Debating structure and agency together with variations….
Change in consumption over time and variation in consumption at a given time is two slightly different approaches to study energy consumption ….
… a classical sociological approach to consumption, which have been quite under researched recently, I would argue
And this, I would also argue, relates to a missing discussion of the structure agency debate
SBi –

16. Variation in energy consumption
Combining socio-economy, energy consumption and building data:
Indirect factors: Type of house and household reflects socio-economy
Direct factors : High status families consumes more, independent of building and household type
Unconscious consumption following from everyday practices are also socially structured
(Hansen, forthcoming)
One of our PhD students use quantitative data to show the social structuring of variations
But this also reveal that parts of the variation can not be explained by these structures
SBi – 21/09/2018

17. Different families – different practices
“Type”
Heat (kWh/year)
Family 1
“Hot, cosy and easy ”
14600
Family 2
“Fresh air and enjoy life”
14000
Family 3
“Concerned but it is not that easy”
10300
Family 4
“Want to save and know how”
4900
Family 5
“Just habits and a little concern”
4000
Another methodological approach is qualitative studies of families with highly varying consumption
1: care for the family=hot, and knowledge from workplace
2: Good life= fresh air from their leisure time
3: environmental awareness is relevant but not enough
4: economic interest and knowledge keeps consumption down
5: a conscious decision to choose habits

18. Understanding variation as embodied socio-material configurations
Know-how and habits
Differences in experiences with comfort
Knowledge - Rules
Differences in knowledge from many different sources:
Engagements
Differences in the meaning of comfort
Energy saving (economy, ecology)
Technology – the same in all families
Different domestication
Both agency and structure in these variations

19. EU - Energy policy: efficiency, efficiency, efficiency!
Efficiency directives
Energy labels on appliances and buildings
Buildings regulations on efficiency
Incentives to promote efficient technologies and retrofitting
The rest of this presentation I will look at EU energy policy, criticise it in the ligth of the approach I have introduced and try to give other directions for policy

20. Energy efficiency is not enough when the number of appliances continues to grow…
kWh/year
1000 units
Energy statistics, Danish Energy Agency, 2013
SBi – 21/09/2018

21. Efficient homes versus heating practices….
Based on detached Danish houses with an energy label.
Please note: this figure is preliminary. Do not cite or reuse without permission by the author.
SBi – 21/09/2018

22. Heat pumps and rebound effect
Change from direct electric heating to heat pumps:
20% of potential savings were used for improved comfort
New technologies go together with changes in practices – A technology is not energy saving in it self

23. Efficiency is not enough Actors also need to be engaged in sustainability or savings
…….
We need to have people engaged in their consumption – I do not say that engegement is not enough or that we should not individualise the responsibility for saving the planet – but on the other hand we should also not ignore the actor effect – and we should se it as part of changing structures for a more sustainable future
SBi –

24. Holding practices together:
Schatzki,1996
Reckwitz, 2002
Warde, 2005
Shove/Pantzar, 2005
Shove et al, 2012
Gram-Hanssen, 2010, 2011
Practical understanding
Body
Understandings
Competences
Know-how,
embodied habits
Mind
The agent
Rules
Structure/process
Procedures
Institutionalised
knowledge and rules
Knowledge
Discourse/language
Teleo-affective structures
Engagement
Meanings
Engagements
General Understandings (2002)
Things
Items of
consumption
Products
Technology and infrastructure
So how can we make energy policy based on PT insigths…
On way of dealing with this is to focus on the elements holding practices together

25. Practice theory and sustainable transitions……
Changing, developing or substituting practices …..

26. Policy on Technologies and infrastructure
Public funding of technology R&D
Now: focus is on energy efficiency.
Change to technologies that support low consuming practices
Include users in technology development
Public planning of the build environment – think about what practices are shaped by…
Urban planning and transport
Infrastructures of provision
SBi –

27. Policy on Knowledge and rules
E.G. Building regulations have been strong in promoting low-energy buildings
What building regulations includes practices?
Buildings which sustain sustainable practices rather than just being efficient
SBi –

28. Policy on Know-how and habits
Energy policy focus on habits, is often about changing “bad” habits. More relevant would be:
Nudging: Technologies and material structures which guides habits: Make it easy to do the right!
Learning processes developing know-how - trying out new practices through demo-project etc.
Include the provision side as sustainable instructors when selling, installing etc.
SBi –

29. Policy on Engagements,
Public campaigns, taxis and subsidiaries, support of community projects and public learning projects etc.
LA21: Is all this forgotten?
Not focusing on buying efficient, but on buying less, living smaller, turning down …..
Public campaigns are often doing the opposite
The actor perspective needs to be part of this
SBi –

30. Policy to influence practices?
All the well-known policy means….
Work simultaneous with several element
Change from efficiency to less consumption
Developing and substituting practices
Including actively engaged actors

31. Thank you for you attention, kgh@sbi.aau.dk