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Knowledge infrastructures produce global objects such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They solidify how problems are formulated, orient us to possible solutions, and legitimise and support specific actors while excluding others. Knowledge infrastructures are analysed using anthropology of technology, science and technology studies, and development studies, to foster a rich understanding of digital data practices, including issues of accountability and inequality. Five dominant dynamics in the maintenance, reinforcement expansion, and innovation of data infrastructures in relation to the SDGs are analysed. They demonstrate how investments in new approaches are moving away from traditional, state-based, nationwide infrastructures, population surveys, and censuses, and how other types of data are produced and valued. These dynamics are (1) production of data as evidence, (2) disaggregation, (3) localisation, (4) diversification, and (5) meaningful accountability. Across these, we see appeals for disaggregation (moving away from population-level reporting), for localisation (predominantly in the form of geo-location), for diversification of data sources to include big data, and for meaningful accountability rather than auditing. These dynamics show the potential advantages and threats of doing data differently, including de-globalisation or re-localisation of data, reconfiguration of visibility and vulnerability, and accompanying shifts in technologies of accountability.

A transition to smart grids requires a wide range of changes in household energy behaviour. In this chapter we discuss four key issues important for understanding and promoting behaviour in smart grids. First, we need to identify which behaviour needs to be changed. A transition to smart grids involves changes in a wide range of energy behaviours, including the adoption of sustainable energy resources, energy-efficient technologies, and automated control technology; investments in energy efficiency measures in buildings such as insulation; and user behaviour. Second, we need to know which factors influence behaviour in smart grids. We discuss the role of motivations and contextual factors. Third, it is important to test effects of interventions aimed to promote smart energy behaviours. Interventions can be aimed at changing the actual costs and benefits of behaviour, or at changing people’s perceptions and evaluations of different costs and benefits of behavioural options. Fourth, we need to understand which factors influence the acceptability of energy policies and energy systems changes aimed to promote smart grids. In this chapter we address important findings from psychological studies on these topics.

This chapter addresses the balancing problem that arises in smart energy grids. Because power generation from renewable energy resources is tied to environmental factors, supply is often fluctuating and decentralised. Minimising the imbalance between supply and demand is important for grid stability, as well as for economic considerations. Flexible appliances propose a means to achieve supply-demand matching by shifting their production or consumption in time. We take a distributed optimal control point of view: we formulate the problem as an optimal control problem and suggest solutions based on distributed model predictive control (MPC) methods. In particular, we aim to minimise the imbalance using demand response regulation and via Power-to-Gas facilities that offer energy storage. Furthermore, we discuss how demand response regulation can be embedded in the market structure of the Universal Smart Energy Framework. We present example simulations to demonstrate the viability of our approaches.

A transition to smart grids requires a wide range of changes in household energy behaviour. In this chapter we discuss four key issues important for understanding and promoting behaviour in smart grids. First, we need to identify which behaviour needs to be changed. A transition to smart grids involves changes in a wide range of energy behaviours, including the adoption of sustainable energy resources, energy-efficient technologies, and automated control technology; investments in energy efficiency measures in buildings such as insulation; and user behaviour. Second, we need to know which factors influence behaviour in smart grids. We discuss the role of motivations and contextual factors. Third, it is important to test effects of interventions aimed to promote smart energy behaviours. Interventions can be aimed at changing the actual costs and benefits of behaviour, or at changing people’s perceptions and evaluations of different costs and benefits of behavioural options. Fourth, we need to understand which factors influence the acceptability of energy policies and energy systems changes aimed to promote smart grids. In this chapter we address important findings from psychological studies on these topics.

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The methods illustrated in this paper address one particular kind of 'trace', the hyperlink, and the use of this trace to help constitute a field of study. We suggest that an ethnographic treatment of hyperlinks can be a useful way to understand the Internet as a space for knowledge production. Via a consideration of hyperlinks as both functional and symbolic, this approach suggests how traditional elements of ethnography might be adapted in order to constitute an online field site for the study of infrastructure. The methods discussed in this paper were elaborated in the course of two projects using virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000). Both focused on new infrastructure for knowledge production (databases) which had a web interface. Common to both projects was the notion that these databases might be involved in shifts in the locus of knowledge production. In other words, the lab as a 'site' may be an increasingly networked, digitised setting. If part of the original motivation for going into the lab for studying science was to visit the place where knowledge was said to originate, the same holds for taking online settings seriously, as a site where knowledge is also arising. Networked knowledge production, however, challenges the traditional approaches to constructing the field for lab studies. The traces chosen as constitutive of the field in our research, hyperlinks, led to a complex, multilayered understanding of interpretive context around the various databases investigated. Paying attention to aspects of connectivity (specificity, origin, timescape, and symbolic and infrastructural dimensions of hyperlinks) may help to build a richer notion of various instantiations of the Internet. The focus in this article is on the notion of time, and on the ways knowledge about various aspects of time may be investigated ethnographically, using hyperlinks as traces.

The methods illustrated in this paper address one particular kind of 'trace', the hyperlink, and the use of this trace to help constitute a field of study. We suggest that an ethnographic treatment of hyperlinks can be a useful way to understand the Internet as a space for knowledge production. Via a consideration of hyperlinks as both functional and symbolic, this approach suggests how traditional elements of ethnography might be adapted in order to constitute an online field site for the study of infrastructure. The methods discussed in this paper were elaborated in the course of two projects using virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000). Both focused on new infrastructure for knowledge production (databases) which had a web interface. Common to both projects was the notion that these databases might be involved in shifts in the locus of knowledge production. In other words, the lab as a 'site' may be an increasingly networked, digitised setting. If part of the original motivation for going into the lab for studying science was to visit the place where knowledge was said to originate, the same holds for taking online settings seriously, as a site where knowledge is also arising. Networked knowledge production, however, challenges the traditional approaches to constructing the field for lab studies. The traces chosen as constitutive of the field in our research, hyperlinks, led to a complex, multilayered understanding of interpretive context around the various databases investigated. Paying attention to aspects of connectivity (specificity, origin, timescape, and symbolic and infrastructural dimensions of hyperlinks) may help to build a richer notion of various instantiations of the Internet. The focus in this article is on the notion of time, and on the ways knowledge about various aspects of time may be investigated ethnographically, using hyperlinks as traces.

The methods illustrated in this paper address one particular kind of ‘trace’, the hyperlink, and the use of this trace to help constitute a field of study. We suggest that an ethnographic treatment of hyperlinks can be a useful way to understand the Internet as a space for knowledge production. Via a consideration of hyperlinks as both functional and symbolic, this approach suggests how traditional elements of ethnography might be adapted in order to constitute an online field site for the study of infrastructure. The methods discussed in this paper were elaborated in the course of two projects using virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000). Both focused on new infrastructure for knowledge production (databases) which had a web interface. Common to both projects was the notion that these databases might be involved in shifts in the locus of knowledge production. In other words, the lab as a ‘site’ may be an increasingly networked, digitised setting. If part of the original motivation for going into the lab for studying science was to visit the place where knowledge was said to originate, the same holds for taking online settings seriously, as a site where knowledge is also arising. Networked knowledge production, however, challenges the traditional approaches to constructing the field for lab studies. The traces chosen as constitutive of the field in our research, hyperlinks, led to a complex, multilayered understanding of interpretive context around the various databases investigated. Paying attention to aspects of connectivity (specificity, origin, timescape, and symbolic and infrastructural dimensions of hyperlinks) may help to build a richer notion of various instantiations of the Internet. The focus in this article is on the notion of time, and on the ways knowledge about various aspects of time may be investigated ethnographically, using hyperlinks as traces