Divergent imaginaries? Co-producing practitioner and householder perspective to cooling demand response in India

Olufolahan O. Osunmuyiwa, Andrew D. Peacock, Sarah R. Payne, P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan and David P. Jenkins

Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 152, issue C

Abstract: With the rise in cooling demand and the permeation of decentralised renewable energy resources in electricity networks, electricity demand-side management (DSM) has become a major tool for electricity planning and decarbonisation in the Global South. In India, the commercial application of DSM is not new, yet utility-driven residential-scale demand response (DR) remains an unexplored area. This paper contributes on two fronts – to explicate householders and practitioner's perceptions of DR: disjunctions between these perceptions and its implications for the acceptance of residential DR. Using a co-production approach, this paper draws insights from two sets of stakeholders in India - 25 DR policy and utility experts and 24 household consumers. Our results show that technological saviourism pervasively underscores practitioners understanding of DR and householder agency, a crucial factor in the adoption of DR at the residential scale remains a missing piece. The paper concludes that without considering householder agency, delivering a decarbonised future based on demand response will be challenging and consumers may remain locked into-existing socio-cultural practices that negate the adoption of DR.

Keywords: Residential demand response; Demand side management; Cooling flexibility; Co-production; Policy; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:152:y:2021:i:c:s0301421521000914

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112222

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