Emerging Smart Grid Struggles - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 10

and understanding about the electricity system and its potential for change. So another goal
of this topic is to shine light on different aspects of the electricity system by exposing to
all the breadth of smart grid visions, priorities, and perspectives. Perhaps with additional
insights and understanding about others' perspectives, some of the tensions and struggles
can be reduced. With enhanced mutual understanding made possible by the broad
perspectives and narratives within this topic, greater alignment of interests and priorities
may evolve in way that accelerate positive system change.
For both experts and non-experts alike, understanding smart grid and the potential for
electricity system change is based ontheir particular background andcultural, professional,
and political values. Our goal in writing this topic is to tell the story of smart grid from
multiple different perspectives in such a way that any reader, whether new to the area or an
experienced electricity system professional, will learn and gain understanding of the larger
smart grid landscape. Given the critical importance and large scope and scale of electricity
systems in our world, it is difficult to understand the whole system and all of the different
perspectives within the system. This topic attempts to shine light on multiple perspectives
with an ultimate goal of helping different actors understand each other's priorities. We are
writing this topic to unpack and make sense of some of this complexity.
The opportunities and challenges of smart grid development vary significantly across
countries and within regions of a single country. Electricity system change includes
complex jurisdictional challenges. While this topic incorporates mention of smart grid
priorities and challenges throughout the world, many of the stories will focus on the United
States, both because the U.S. context is the geographic and political area of the world in
which we have the most experience, as citizens, electricity consumers, and researchers, but
also because we seek to highlight the regional heterogeneity in smart grid development
within the United States and illuminate the rich debates and discussions occurring across
multiple contexts. We also draw on examples from Canada and Europe, and recognize that
issues associated with grid development extend beyond these two continents.
An important perspective that we bring to our review and analysis of smart grid is that
of sociotechnical systems. Central to this perspective is the notion that large technical
systems coevolve with associated social, cultural, and political institutions. The trajectory
of all technological change is intricately linked to social factors, and the trajectory of
social change is intricately linked to technological factors. Constant, dynamic interactions
among social and technological dimensions shape an interconnected complex system.
This sociotechnical systems perspective has roots in sociological (Bijker, Hughes, and
Pinch 1987 ) and historical (Hughes 1983 ) accounts of technological change, as well as in
evolutionary economics and other influences.