Out of sight, out of mind? How electricity (un)reliability shapes residential energy transitions

Cristina Crespo Montañés, Isha Ray and Veronica Jacome

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 385, issue C, No S0306261925002272

Abstract: Social norms on household energy consumption practices have been historically fostered through ideas of comfort, cleanliness and modernity, underpinned by reliable and affordable energy services. Contemporary discourses on energy transitions require households to conform to new expectations of “sustainable” living, calling for energy users to participate in the electrification of energy end-uses, provided sufficient economic incentives. Yet, a combination of emotional and social responses to the increased frequency of power outages complicate this account. Despite expectations of consumer cooperation in the clean energy transition, limited research explores how differing capabilities and lived experiences with energy infrastructure modify perspectives on these changes. Through semi-structured interviews with sixty Northern California residents, we explore how residents cope with energy unreliability and whether—or how—they envision transitioning to higher levels of electrification of their homes. By centering users' lived experiences, this work goes beyond formulations of “customer choices” to focus on how everyday energy practices are reimagined in the context of residential electrification policies, climate imperatives, and power outages —or the fear thereof. We argue that the emotional, social, and relational dimensions of grid reliability should complement the predominantly techno-economic lens through which electricity reliability is studied, highlighting the implications of this framing for electricity-intensive residential energy transitions.

Keywords: Electricity unreliability; Residential electrification; Social dimensions of reliability; Science and technology studies; Power outages; California energy policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925002272
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:385:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925002272

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.125497

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().