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Lead Investigators: Dr. Daphne Mah, Dr. Darren Cheung
Lead Investigators: Dr. Daphne Mah, Dr. Darren Cheung
Existing emission reduction goals under the Paris Agreement will not deliver the deep decarbonisation that is required to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Cities, as key sustainability transition arenas, urgently need to include smart grids as a core feature in increasingly interconnected, digitalised, and smarter power grid systems. Smart grids generally refer to the modernisation of electricity sectors through the integration of ICT into existing electricity systems (D. N.-y. Mah, Wu, & Hills, 2017). Smart grid technologies such as smart meters, household battery technologies and home energy management systems can scale up the use of renewable energy and energy saving. Definitions and applications of smart grids vary across national and city contexts. But smart grids have been widely regarded as enabling and transformative technologies that may realise energy transitions. In essence, smart grids can facilitate transitions from fossil fuel/ nuclear-based centralised power systems towards low-carbon renewable energy and large numbers of small-scale proactive electricity prosumers (Hvelplund & Djørup, 2017; Parag & Sovacool, 2016). As such, smart grids need to build upon new government-utility-consumer relationships. Electricity end-users, when supported by smart meters, can change from passive to active, well-informed actors engaging in energy systems. Smart meters are necessary to support the data exchange between electricity suppliers and end-users (D. Mah, Leung, & Hills, 2014).
The substantive case study concerns the case of Hong Kong. To combat climate change and support the government’s vision to develop Hong Kong into a smart city, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited (CLP Power) started in November 2018 to install smart meters for all its customers over a span of seven years until 2025. These smart meters provide customers with a range of digitalised services and solutions to encourage energy saving and further improve supply reliability, while giving customers timely access to data on their electricity consumption, and thus encourage lower energy use at peak times and save on electricity bills through a change in their consumption habits. CLP Power claims that the programme provides the company with a better understanding of their customers’ feedback towards a variety of demand response measures, enabling the company to explore how to cater better to customers’ future needs. But customers may also question whether the data about their personal energy consumption patterns could be further exploited.
Using the case of China Light and Power, this work package investigates two types of trust and transparency tensions that arise alongside smart grid advancement. The first type of tension relates to trade-off decisions. Sustainability transitions are value-laden, and trade-off decisions are made among economic, environment, and social goals which are often competing with each other (D. N.-Y. Mah et al., 2018); (van den Bergh, Truffer, & Kallis, 2011). The second type of tension concerns access to and control over big data, and privacy issues (Parag & Sovacool, 2016). The public may not have trust in governments and regulators to regulate properly new market situations as well as protecting people’s privacy.
The research team investigates these trust-transparency tensions through mixed methods. We commissioned the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) to conduct a mass survey in March to April 2021, with a representative sample of 808, and specifically designed the questions on smart energy preferences and technology. The case selection captures respondents in districts that have changed to smart meters and in districts that have not yet changed to smart meters, both in public and private housing. The survey also shares a number of common questions with work package 2. In addition, researchers in this work package engaged in local stakeholder interviews in relation to Smart Meters, with a pilot-case study in the locality of Sai Kung (involving interviews, as well as preparing the installation of smart meters in a selection of 20 households). Finally, the team was responsible for organising the second workshop, held in conjunction with the Asian Energy Studies Centre. Dr. Daphne Mah and Dr. Darren Cheung prepare an article entitled "Rebuilding data trust through engaging communities in smart energy transitions: A case study of Sai Kung in Hong Kong" for the special issue of China Perspectives.
Reference:Hvelplund, F., & Djørup, S. (2017). Multilevel policies for radical transition: Governance for a 100% renewable energy system. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 35(7), 1218-1241. doi:10.1177/2399654417710024Mah, D., Leung, K. P. Y., & Hills, P. (2014). Smart grids: The regulatory challenges. In D. Mah, P. Hills, V. Li, & R. Balme (Eds.), Smart Grid Applications and Developments (pp. 115-140). London; Heidelberg; New York; Dordrecht: Springer.Mah, D. N.-y., Wu, Y.-Y., & Hills, P. R. (2017). Explaining the role of incumbent utilities in sustainable energy transitions: A case study of the smart grid development in China. Energy Policy, 109, 794-806. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.06.059Mah, D. N.-Y., Lam, V., Siu, A., Ye, H., Ogata, S., & Wu, Y.-Y. (2018). Understanding undergraduate students’ perceptions of dynamic pricing policies: An exploratory study of two pilot deliberative pollings (DPs) in Guangzhou, China and Kyoto, Japan. Journal of Cleaner Production. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.255Parag, Y., & Sovacool, B. K. (2016). Electricity market design for the prosumer era. Nature Energy, 1, 16032. doi:10.1038/nenergy.2016.32van den Bergh, J. C. J. M., Truffer, B., & Kallis, G. (2011). Environmental innovation and societal transitions: Introduction and overview. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2011.04.010
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