This collaborative project between the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Ghana, and Temple University explores the socio-spatial dimensions of electricity unreliability in the East Bay Area, California, and Accra, Ghana. The study examines how Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) in California and ongoing grid instability in Accra influence everyday life, shaping not only access to essential services but also community expectations of what constitutes adequate or 'ideal' energy provision. It explores how infrastructural conditions become normalized, the spatial unevenness of energy access, and the ways in which communities and institutions respond to and contest these conditions. By analyzing these cases both independently and comparatively, the project raises critical questions about how infrastructures are shaped by—and, in turn, shape—power dynamics, social inequalities, and the possibilities for transformative change in energy systems.

Funded by the National Science Foundation

Unreliability in the East Bay, California

For more information, read our most recent paper, “Out of sight, out of mind? How electricity (un)reliability shapes residential energy transitions,” written by Cristina Crespo Montanes, Isha Ray, and Veronica Jacome.

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 psychosocial responses to increased frequency of power outages and socio-economic factors complicate this account. Despite expectations of consumer cooperation towards a clean energy transition, there is limited research on how people’s differing capabilities and lived experiences of energy infrastructures modify their perspectives on such 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 “social dimensions of grid reliability” should complement the predominantly techno-economic lens through which electric reliability is studied,highlighting the implications of this framing for electricity-intensive residential energy transitions.