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The smart grid as commons: Exploring alternatives to infrastructure financialisation

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Hall

    (School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK)

  • Andrew EG Jonas

    (Geography, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Hull, UK)

  • Simon Shepherd

    (Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK)

  • Zia Wadud

    (Institute for Transport Studies, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, UK)

Abstract

This article explores a tension between financialisation of electricity infrastructures and efforts to bring critical urban systems into common ownership. Focusing on the emerging landscape of electricity regulation and e-mobility in the United Kingdom (UK), it examines how electricity grid ownership has become financialised, and why the economic assumptions that enabled this financialisation are being called into question. New technologies, such as smart electricity meters and electric vehicles, provide cities with new tools to tackle poor air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity grids are key enabling infrastructures but the companies that run them do not get rewarded for improving air quality or tackling climate change. UK government regulation of electricity grids both enables financialisation and forecloses opportunities to manage the infrastructure for wider environmental and public benefit. Nonetheless, the addition of smart devices to this network – the ‘smart grid’ – opens up an opportunity for common ownership of the infrastructure. Transforming the smart grid into commons necessitates deep structural reform to the entire architecture of infrastructure regulation in the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Hall & Andrew EG Jonas & Simon Shepherd & Zia Wadud, 2019. "The smart grid as commons: Exploring alternatives to infrastructure financialisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1386-1403, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:7:p:1386-1403
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098018784146
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Heather Whiteside, 2019. "Advanced perspectives on financialised urban infrastructures," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1477-1484, May.
    4. Quitzow, Leslie & Rohde, Friederike, 2022. "Imagining the smart city through smart grids? Urban energy futures between technological experimentation and the imagined low-carbon city," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 341-359.
    5. Pansera, Mario & Lloveras, Javier & Durrant, Daniel, 2024. "The infrastructural conditions of (de-)growth: The case of the internet," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    6. Peter O’Brien & Phil O’Neill & Andy Pike, 2019. "Funding, financing and governing urban infrastructures," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1291-1303, May.

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