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The smart grid is an important but ambiguous element in the future transition of the European energy system. The current paper unpacks one influential national vision of the smart grid to identify what kinds of expectations guide the work of smart grid innovators and how the boundaries of the smart grid are defined. Building on data from a scenario exercise within a large Danish smart grid project, we examine how the smart grid and the conditions for its realization are defined and delimited. Our findings show that the smart grid hype embodies several implicit expectations that serve to guide research and investment and to attract new players into the field. A scenario process such as that demonstrated in this article can serve to articulate some of these implicit assumptions and help actors to navigate the ongoing transition. On the basis of our analysis, European policymakers might consider how their (intentional or unintentional) choices serve to create or maintain certain boundaries in smart grid development: for example, an exclusive focus on electricity within the broader context of a sustainable energy system. As serious investment starts being made in the smart grid, concepts like the supergrid, flexible demand and a broader smart energy system will start competing with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart grid is promoted as one of the key elements in a low-carbon transition in many countries. In Denmark, the dominant framing of the smart grid emphasises the challenge of integrating much more wind power into the electricity system and using electricity for heating (heat pumps) and transport (electric cars). In the process of radically transforming the electricity system, strategic system builders need to align many forces, including consumers, who play an important role in the functioning of such large networked systems. System builders need to explore, for instance, whether and how users can be motivated to be flexible in relation to moving electricity consumption over time. This paper reports on one of the first smart-grid-related projects in Denmark in which consumer aspects have been central and where potentials for flexible electricity consumption have been tested. The aim of the paper is to explore what can be learned from such experiments and which roles they play in the construction of the smart grid. In this context, the concept of the 'aligned user' is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer-oriented environmental policies came high on the political agenda during the 1990s. Internationally, consumers were assigned a key role in environmental policies; also in Denmark, political initiatives were taken to promote sustainable consumer behaviour. In this article, the results of Danish policies related to consumption and environment are assessed by considering first, the environmental impacts of the political measures, and second, whether the policies have succeeded in addressing the dynamics behind increasing consumption. The study combines a theoretical understanding of consumption as an inseparable part of daily practices with empirical analyses of three fields of consumption: housing, transportation, and information and communication technology. It is pointed out that policies to promote sustainable consumption are successful only when technological development, economic structures, and information are all in accordance with each other, and this is the case only when sustainable consumption does not conflict with economic growth. A more fundamental critique thus concerns the failure of Danish consumer-oriented environmental policies to address consumption growth and the rising standards for “normal consumption.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]