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Paper short abstract

I explore tensions between the two groups who are at the forefront of energy industry digitalisation: maintainers and innovators. The unique materalities of hardware and software systems complicate collaborations but do not exclude the possibility of alignment.

Paper long abstract

Digitalisation of the grid promises a sustainable energy system. However, we do not fully understand how innovative technologies are introduced—and challenged—in legacy infrastructures. In this talk, I explore how energy industry practitioners in the UK perform alignment work to incorporate novel digital tools into existing systems, while remaining aware of their unique materialities. I present my argument in three parts. First, a new wave of digitalisation challenges an established order of pre-planned and highly assured infrastructure engineering with agile and experimental innovation practices. However, this is not happening without pushback from professionals responsible for safety and stability of supply who usually operate under strict constraints related to the hardware systems they’re looking after. Second, I show how software innovators and legacy maintainers temporarily leave their roles to align their practices and bridge their respective communities. By arriving at shared understanding of “testing” and “errors,” both groups advance digitalisation while remaining cognisant of the unique temporalities and materialities of energy infrastructures. Third, the negotiations are aligned by the shared goal of cybersecurity, which is reframed as a solution to bring together the divergent epistemic cultures found across the industry. What emerges as a result is digitalisation enacted on terms shared by innovators and maintainers; a piecemeal, contested, and slow process, resistant to the dominant cultural narrative of urgency and haste.