Background: Norway is currently in the process of replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). A steadily increasing number of EVs being charged in the evening when the demand peaks are already high has added to the strain on local electricity grids. Smart charging is proposed as a solution to peak-load challenges of this kind, as it can delay charging until evenings and nights when demand peaks are generally low. However, current knowledge of the preferences and motivations of EV owners regarding the installation and use of smart chargers is lacking. Accordingly, the study aims to contribute an improved understanding in this respect.Methods: The authors conducted a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews, in which they gained information on householder’s experiences following their participation in a pilot project to test smart charging of EVs. The interviews explored the interviewees’ motivation for participating in the project, their experiences of using and charging EVs, and their thoughts on flexibility in the timing of EV charging. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, after which a domestication theory approach was employed to perform an in-depth analysis of the interview data.Results: The analysis of the interviews revealed that the study participants had four motivations for participating in the smart charging demonstration project and engaging in the further use of smart charging: (1) the fire-safety aspect and speed of charging devices for EVs was better than charging from a socket; (2) they derived a broader interest in and more joy from using smart home technology; (3) attractive practical and economic benefits; and (4) the flexibility offered by smart charging had the potential to have a positive impact on physical comfort.Conclusions: The study revealed key domestication processes unfolding in the Norwegian energy transition with the increasing numbers of EVs and the corresponding grid peaks. The findings clearly indicate that users’ motivations go much further than simple economic rationalization, which should be of interest to policymakers, smart home developers, and all others that work with end-user flexibility in the grid.

When large shares of electric vehicles are adopted, local electricity grids face new challenges associated with managing peak loads emerging from charging. Smart charging has been proposed as a way of addressing this challenge. To date, experiences of such combinations of technology mainly stem from pilot and demonstration projects, often organized as part of the research, innovation, and development initiatives. The paper explores local efforts to implement such technologies in four urban residential communities in Norway, where the technologies are needed for local electricity grids to keep up with the rapid uptake of electric vehicles. The authors study how the influx of electric vehicles enables new forms of material politics and new forms of engagement with the electricity grid. Their findings illustrate how the influx of EVs and the related response in urban residential communities often transforms very local democratic processes and actors into key sites and intermediaries of energy transitions. Through such processes, decisions are made about how to develop both the grid and the community through the mobilization of “smart” technologies. A further finding is that the influx of EVs might function as a conduit for the development of what the authors call electricity grid sensitivity.

Demand-side management (DSM) programs aiming to both reduce and render household consumption more flexible are becoming increasingly essential due to ongoing energy crises and the growing integration of renewable energy into energy production. The active involvement of households and energy users is crucial to fully unlock the potential of DSM programs. As this paper demonstrates, despite more than thirty years of feminist scholarly work focusing on the home as an important site of the production of gender inequality, few of these insights have been taken into account by DSM designers. Additionally, we note a broader pattern concerning gaps in knowledge regarding the diverse perspectives of energy users and their domestic contexts, all of which create obstacles to successful rollout and scalability. This paper uses the concepts of the social license to automate and intersectionality to analyze the existing literature on DSM programs. We find that three primary barriers in household DSM programs have been addressed: 1) there is an unresolved tension between DSM technology being perceived as a masculine domain and the home as a feminine domain; 2) low-income households face challenges in accessing the technology needed to enable both flexibility and savings; and 3) disparities in opportunities for youth and the elderly to participate in DSM programs are insufficiently considered. Based on these findings we argue that user diversity—not only conceived of as separate identity category variables but also as implicating overlapping and possible mutually reinforcing marginalizations– is needed to form a starting point in DSM program design for fair and scalable solutions.

Here is spontaneous in-depth-interviewing in the public. We analyze written observations and field notes both from own empirical studies, and from other researchers studies where the same method and methodological perspective has been used. The term «interaction door» is introduced to show how observation and spontaneous in-depth-interviews are interwoven methodological techniques. They support each other during data generation, rather than being producers of different types of data.

The smartphone has become the most ubiquitous piece of personal technology, giving it significant social importance and sociological relevance. In this article, we explore how the smartphone interacts with and impacts social interaction in the setting of the urban café. Through analyzing 52 spontaneous in-depth interviews related to social interaction in cafés, we identify three categories of smartphone use in social settings: interaction suspension, deliberately shielding interaction, and accessing shareables. These categories comprise the constitutive smartphone practices that define the social order of public smartphone use within an interactionist sociological framework.