Efficient, Secure Green: Digital Utopianism and the Challenge of Making the Electrical Grid "Smart".

Electrical grids have long depended upon information infrastructures--systems for exchanging information about electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and use. But only in the last decade has the notion of a "smart grid" captured the imagination of policymakers, business leaders, and tec...

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Publicado en:Information & Culture Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 448 - 479
Autor principal: Slayton, Rebecca
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: University of Texas Press 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Efficient, Secure Green: Digital Utopianism and the Challenge of Making the Electrical Grid "Smart".
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        au: Slayton, Rebecca
        affil: Visiting scholar, Stanford's Center for International Security
      su:
        Electric power systems
        Digital technology
        Information networks
        Monopolies
        Free enterprise
        Microprocessors
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          Electric power systems
          Digital technology
          Information networks
          Monopolies
          Free enterprise
          Microprocessors
      ab: Electrical grids have long depended upon information infrastructures--systems for exchanging information about electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and use. But only in the last decade has the notion of a "smart grid" captured the imagination of policymakers, business leaders, and technologists. Smart grid promoters promise that information technology will simultaneously improve the efficiency, reliability, and security of the grid. This article shows how these goals have come into tension as the grid's information infrastructure has shaped, and been shaped by, government policies. It advances a three-part argument. First, digital technology and digital utopianism played a significant and underanalyzed role in restructuring the electricity industry during the 1980s and 1990s. Second, industry restructuring encouraged utilities to deploy information technology in ways that sacrificed reliability, security, and even physical efficiency for economic efficiency. Third, aligning the many goals for a smart grid will require heterogeneous engineering--designing sociopolitical and technological worlds together.
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    language: English
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