Community and Small-Scale Grid Innovation - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 171

controlled electric grids (Mayer-Schonberger 2006 ; Endres 2009 ) . Along with many of the
new social movements, locavolts are a technologically savvy group with anti-corporate
inclinations (Juris 2005 ; Carvalho 2012 ). Their organized actions rely on interactive media
that are produced and distributed using computers, the internet, and social media, whose
data can be widely accessed by anyone interested (Webster 2001 ) . These media have
shifted opportunities for public engagement in system-level changes. For example,
face-to-face meetings and paper-based campaigns have taken a back seat to chat rooms,
blogs, and Twitter feeds. The central point here is that locavolts both generate and use
power locally, and they use communication technologies connected through the internet
to make it happen. This is not to claim that locavolts never participate in more traditional
organizing activities. They combine use of these interactive media with more traditional
on-the-groundorganizingandactivism.Forexample,theLocalCleanEnergyAllianceheld
a festival titled “Locavolts Unite” on November 13, 2008 in San Francisco (Local Clean
Energy Alliance 2013 ). The organization has a large web-based membership, regularly
conducts policy briefings, and uses the internet to coordinate campaigns supporting or
opposing state legislation related to energy.
Prosumers . Our interest in the locavolt movement grows out of its potential to nurture
the cadre of prosumers who are integral to smart microgrids. As we discussed in Chapter
2 , prosumers are fully engaged in the energy grid, even to the extent of participating in
basic innovation. Rather than divorcing themselves from the system, they are involved in
changing it through producing electricity. Their empowerment grows out of their belief
that they have the potential to build a better system, rather than from deep alienation.
Although we recognize there are individuals for whom the electricity system, no more or
less than any other system, represents a fundamental threat, this is not our focus. We are
interested in the emergence of the prosumer because it represents a fundamental shift in
how energy system actors identify themselves and characterize each other. It also indicates
the importance of providing more participatory opportunities for those who demonstrate
an interest in, and a sense of responsibility for, the future energy system. In this chapter,
the prosumers we focus on identify themselves as locavolts, whose political activities are
intended to build a more horizontally organized energy system.
7.2 Promises and Pitfalls
As a demonstration of the recurring tensions between centralization and decentralization,
small-scale grid initiatives are especially likely to deliver certain benefits and also pose
specific risks. Small and independent projects could promise their participants increased
reliability if they could enable continued functionality when the larger system goes down.
Superstorm Sandy provided an opportunity for microgrids in the Eastern United States