Our fourth flexibility reading room focused on a short perspective piece by Gareth Powells and Michael Fell.
Our fourth flexibility reading room on 20 January 2021 was a discussion of a short perspective piece by Gareth Powells and Michael Fell, Flexibility capital and flexibility justice in smart energy systems.
This provided a starting point from which to discuss different ways of conceptualising flexibility. We considered, in no particular order, questions about Bourdieu’s notion of capital; the historical positioning of whatever we mean by flexibility; how flexibility is a product of shifting assemblages and/or a property of people; what it means to measure flexibility; what regulators and engineers might take from Gareth and Mike’s paper, the relevance of distinguishing between storage, the ability to ramp up and down provision, and other possible ‘bases’ of flexibility, along with also fundamental questions about the implicit backdrop of normality. This was a relatively small Reading Room which meant we had lots of time to get into these and other questions in some depth.
Transcript: Flexibility capital and justice in smart energy systems
Further reading rooms
- Find out more in our reading room series.
Participants
- Stan Blue
- Elizabeth Shrove
- Michael Fell
- Gareth Powells
- Nicola Labanca
- Selin Yilmaz
- Yohei Yamaguchi
- Mikko Jalas
- Marius Korsnes
- Matteo Barsanti
Reference
Powells, G, & Fell, M.J. 2019. Flexibility capital and flexibility justice in smart energy systems. Energy Research & Social Science, 54: 56–59. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2019.03.015
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