Thesis supervisor
: Olivier Coutard
While digital technology is transforming the energy sector, the scale and forms of this evolution remain to be studied. Since 2005, the design of the Linky smart meter has been accompanied by numerous attempts to redefine individual behavior, advocating the advent of a "smart consumer," based on both the logic of opening up energy markets and the principle of energy savings and transition. However, the installation of this new technology, which has already been installed in many other countries since the early 2000s, has been the subject of debate since its experimental launch in 2010.
Contrary to the placeless and ahistorical rationality of the Linky meter, this thesis in the sociology of innovation proposes to analyze the forms of politicization and modes of appropriation that arise from the design, reception, and operation of this new technology. This study highlights that the qualifications of the Linky meter go beyond the realm of design: meaning and appropriation are constructed within the social worlds involved with the Linky meter. At each stage of innovation in the social worlds studied, new controversies arise, revolving around debates that appear to be very distant from one another. The Linky meter, as an infrastructure for the digitization of the energy world, thus acts as a catalyst for new questions, in light of contemporary debates on consumption, health, and digital technology, as negotiated by several "cause entrepreneurs," whether professional or not (defenders of personal data protection, electrohypersensitive collectives, promoters of energy transition, activists for the opening up of personal data, field staff). The omnipresent figures of the user and the citizen are constantly invoked in these denunciations: users as actors in their own consumption, energy-poor households, victims of health hazards, people whose privacy is being violated, etc.
Focusing on the novelty of the Linky meter or the media controversies it provokes partly masks the set of regulations at work in the social worlds of the Linky meter: the thesis shows that the dynamics of controversy are linked to local specificities (sociopolitical history of the territories; associative and political networks; characteristics of analog meter parks). The study of the service relationship between field professionals and customers also shows the importance of local regulations: after an intense phase of dispute resolution, professionals will tighten the meaning and uses of the infrastructure within the framework of a peaceful service relationship centered on the figure of an honest customer kept at a distance from their metering infrastructure. The Linky meter—what it should be, what it ultimately becomes—reveals a plurality of societal models (an energy-efficient society, a "connected" society, etc.). This thesis is devoted to analyzing this process, this "socialization," which is driving the transformation and adaptation of the Linky meter.
This research, conducted in partnership with the Energy, Technology and Society Research Group (EDF Lab), is based on nearly 135 interviews and ethnographic observations (in Île-de-France, the southwest, Indre-et-Loire, and the Lyon metropolitan area), conducted with all stakeholders involved in the design and distribution of the meter, on the study of two contrasting fields of experimentation with the Linky meter, as well as analyses of media content and historical archives of energy companies.
Summary
Introduction
Chapter 1 — From flat-rate contracts to electronic meters (1880-2004)
1. From flat-rate contracts to a multiplicity of meters from private companies (1880-1946)
2. The turning point of network unification (1946) and a single metering system:
the blue electromechanical meter (1963)
3. Economic crisis and opportunities for electronics: from prepaid meters to electronic meters (1985-2004)
Chapter 2 — At the top, the technical and commercial professionals behind the smart meter project
1. A brief political history of the implementation of the smart meter project
2. Data policy, between ecological efficiency and pricing
3. Diversity of models of appropriation and distancing from the meter
Chapter 3 — On the sidelines, those disappointed and resistant to the Linky meter
1. Multiple commitments, single cause: working to integrate citizen issues for the requalification of the Linky meter
2. Media coverage of smart meters
3. Predispositions to commitments and local variables
4. Local expertise and mobilization against Linky meters
Chapter 4 — On the other side, field professionals
1. The location of traditional meters seen as a production problem
2. The entry of local services into the Linky meter project
3. Technology put to the test: distancing the customer in the name of the service relationship
Chapter 5 — At the bottom, households
1. Uses and non-uses of the electricity meter
2. The arrival of the Linky meter: reconfigurations of the service relationship
3. Denunciation regimes surrounding the Linky meter
4. Getting information from whistleblowers, mobilizing social networks and the city
Conclusion
Thesis defense on Friday, November 30, 2018
Composition of the jury
Sandrine Barrey, Senior Lecturer, Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University (Examiner)
Cécile Caron, Research Engineer in Sociology, Energy, Technology and Society Research Group, EDF Lab (Guest Member)
Olivier Coutard, Director of Research, CNRS (LATTS) (Thesis Director)
Éric Dagiral, Senior Lecturer, Paris Descartes University (Examiner)
Gérald Gaglio, University Professor, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis (Jury Rapporteur)
Benoit Lelong, University Professor, University of Paris 8 (Examiner)
Thomas Reverdy, Senior Lecturer, INP Grenoble (Jury Rapporteur).
Doctoral school
: OMI – Organization, Market, Innovation
Thesis registration
: 2013
Public hearing on December 14, 2017, on the societal and economic challenges of smart meters at the National Assembly. Learn more