Paper short abstract:

Practice theory has nuanced the view of energy consumers by showing how consumption is constituted, negotiated and changed through everyday practices. In this paper we argue that additional material focus is needed and propose the concepts of enactment, entanglement and affordance as ways forward.

Paper long abstract:

Energy consumption is in many ways invisible - mediated through practices and things. While practice theory has helped nuance the view of energy consumers as rational resource managers by showing how consumption is constituted, negotiated and changed through the performance of everyday practices, most energy research is still challenged when it comes to the material aspects of energy consumption. Technologies are often defined by "objective" qualities, like their energy consumption, flexibility potential, optimal settings etc.

In this paper we propose instead to explore the different ways in which technologies are enacted and entangled in people's everyday lives. Taking an ontological approach, things are not objective entities interpreted differently by different actors. Through different enactments, things are different versions of themselves. Following this perspective the same technology may be two completely different things to different people, or may be enacted differently by the same person, depending on the context.

This approach offers new perspectives on the complex interplay between people, technologies and energy consumption. Energy consumption is not just shaped by values and knowledge of individuals but also very much by the technologies surrounding us; the affordance of these technologies and our relationship to them. Technologies play an active role in the configuration of energy consumption as more than tools. We therefore need to start drawing on a deeper material understanding to design solutions that do not just take into consideration the functionality or effect (e.g. carbon footprint) of technologies, but also their enactment, entanglement and affordance in people's everyday lives.