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This photo essay draws on research into the history of energy systems to show that substituting one fuel for another is never straightforward. Historical cases and examples show how energy systems are layered and interwoven, and how they are embedded in society and in what people take to be normal ways of life. The essay also shows that energy infrastructures and related patterns of consumption and practice have legacies that matter for future and for the integration of new forms of provision and supply.

In urban studies and in energy policy there is much debate about the relationship between energy demand and the density of residential areas, measured in units such as those of population/ha or population/km2. A different approach is presented in this paper. Rather than evaluating the relative merits of compact or sprawling urban forms, the focus is on the spatial configuration of the infrastructures, appliances and systems of provision on which city life depends. An interview-based study of households living in the same extremely ‘dense’ neighbourhood in Hanoi, Vietnam, shows how practices of cooling, laundering and cooking (and the energy demands associated with these practices) are shaped by material arrangements that exist within the home and that also stretch far beyond. The conclusion that supply and demand are constituted across multiple spatial scales has practical implications for urban design, and for how the relation between energy demand and density is defined and understood. PRACTICE RELEVANCE Energy demand is a consequence of how social practices are distributed and organised across space and time. By contrast, metrics of density can be counter-productive and tend to obscure potentially crucial questions regarding the constitution and the transformation of energy demand. A practical approach is presented to conceptualise relations between material arrangements and energy demands at different scales: from the layout of the home to more extensive infrastructures and systems of provision. The implications of these ideas can influence debates about urban density and design by focusing attention on infrastructures, appliances and the layout of the spaces that influence how they are actually used, and for the practices they accommodate and enable.

There is broad agreement that the need to decarbonise and make better use of renewable and more intermittent sources of power will require increased flexibility in energy systems. However, organisations involved in the energy sector work with very different interpretations of what this might involve. In describing how the notion of flexibility is reified, commodified, and operationalised in sometimes disparate and sometimes connected ways, we show that matters of time and timing are routinely abstracted from the social practices and forms of provision on which the rhythms of supply and demand depend. We argue that these forms of abstraction have the ironic effect of stabilising interpretations of need and demand, and of limiting rather than enabling the emergence of new practices and patterns of demand alongside, and as part of, a radically decarbonised energy system. One way out of this impasse is to conceptualise flexibility as an emergent outcome of the sequencing and synchronisation of social practices. To do so requires a more integrated and historical account of how supply and demand constitute each other and how both are implicated in the temporal organisation of everyday life. It follows that efforts to promote flexibility in the energy sector need to look beyond systems of provision, price, technology, and demand-side management narrowly defined, and instead focus on the social rhythms and the timing of what people do.

The goal of maintaining current levels of energy supply and demand whilst reducing their carbon intensity will require greater use of renewables. As a result, new forms of flexibility will be needed. While the emerging “flexibility industry” promises solutions based on current configurations, this collection shows that the problem of managing fluctuations in the relation between supply demand is not new. The papers included in this special issue work with different approaches and scales of analysis, but all show that lessons for balancing energy supply and demand today can be drawn from the past. Just as important, they show that the legacies of past practices and infrastructures live on and have effect in contemporary energy systems.

There is broad agreement that the need to decarbonise and make better use of renewable and more intermittent sources of power will require increased flexibility in energy systems. However, organisations involved in the energy sector work with very different interpretations of what this might involve. In describing how the notion of flexibility is reified, commodified, and operationalised in sometimes disparate and sometimes connected ways, we show that matters of time and timing are routinely abstracted from the social practices and forms of provision on which the rhythms of supply and demand depend. We argue that these forms of abstraction have the ironic effect of stabilising interpretations of need and demand, and of limiting rather than enabling the emergence of new practices and patterns of demand alongside, and as part of, a radically decarbonised energy system. One way out of this impasse is to conceptualise flexibility as an emergent outcome of the sequencing and synchronisation of social practices. To do so requires a more integrated and historical account of how supply and demand constitute each other and how both are implicated in the temporal organisation of everyday life. It follows that efforts to promote flexibility in the energy sector need to look beyond systems of provision, price, technology, and demand-side management narrowly defined, and instead focus on the social rhythms and the timing of what people do.

Energy demand, usually indicated by the amount of energy currently consumed in different sectors, is a key factor in national and international energy and climate change policy. In the energy world, demand has different meanings and associations: it often figures as the logical partner to ‘supply’; it is tied to interpretations of ‘need’; and it is the subject of various forms of intervention, including methods of ‘demand side’ management. In this chapter we distinguish between definitions that (a) interpret demand as the energy required to meet current and future needs and (b) those that take energy demand to be inseparable from the constitution of energy services and social practices. The latter position highlights the ongoing dynamics of demand and the part that policy makers and others play in establishing and changing what people do and the energy requirements that follow.

It has long been recognised that energy is not consumed for its own sake but for the services that it provides. Despite this, the majority of energy policy and research remains firmly focused on energy itself: approaching it as a resource that is measured in units like kWh or cubic meters and that is knowingly and rationally acquired, used and managed. This chapter challenges interpretations of energy as a resource by developing and extending the concept of energy services. This approach generates new ideas and insights for those involved in reducing and managing energy demand.

Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in using ‘smart’ technologies: to can gather information about a building and its inhabitants, and automatically make decisions about which appliances and services should be powered. Promoting smart homes is frequently seen as a means of reducing energy demand. However, this chapter shows that smart home technologies are also positioned and sold as means of enhancing convenience or creating a cosy atmosphere. In increasing expectations of service, and in relying on energy-intensive infrastructures like network technology and data centres, smart home technologies might not reduce demand at all.

We know that patterns of domestic consumption are situated within broader systems of provision and that home appliances like the fridge freezer bridge between practices of cooking, shopping and eating, on the one hand, and increasingly global systems of food production, distribution and diet on the other. In analysing uses of fridge freezers in Hanoi and Bangkok as expressions, in microcosm, of complex and evolving processes of urbanisation and food provisioning this paper provides new insight into how specific configurations, dependencies and patterns of consumption take hold and how they vary and change. Our analysis of systems and practices in flux has the dual function of showing how household strategies reflect and contribute to more extensive transformations, and of demonstrating how these are shaped by ongoing tensions and relations between new and established forms of urban food supply and associated concepts of freshness and safety. The result is a subtle account of the multiple routes through which consumer ‘needs’ evolve.