Ingrid Foss Ballo

Publications

Extracting Users: Regimes of Engagement in Norwegian Smart Electricity Transition

Digitalization and renewables reduce active user roles as energy systems automate, rely on behavioral data, raise privacy concerns, while also redefining how users can participate in future energy governance.

Making sense of sensing homes: exploring ‘regimes of engagement’ in a smart urban energy context

The paper uses a living lab in Bergen to explore how people interpret smart urban energy initiatives, showing how they shift between roles as consumers, citizens, and responsible users through the pragmatic lens of regimes of engagement.

Imagining energy futures: Sociotechnical imaginaries of the future Smart Grid in Norway

The paper examines expert imaginaries of Norway’s future Smart Grid, showing how visions center on technological and economic solutions, construct the public as consumers, and highlight the need for more openness and diverse perspectives.

Public reasoning in "post-truth" times. Technoscientific imaginaries of "smart" futures

The chapter critiques dominant “smart” technoscientific imaginaries in post‑truth times, showing how they limit democratic engagement while also opening possibilities for alternative public reasoning and more inclusive future visions.

The research lies within the field of social science perspectives on energy, technology, and the public sphere, examining how smart technologies, digitalization, and energy infrastructures are embedded in broader societal transformations. Focused particularly on user roles, data extraction, privacy, and democratic processes in energy transitions. The publications address smart energy technologies, regimes of engagement in everyday practices, and technoscientific future imaginaries, including how such narratives influence public participation and understandings of “smart” societies. The work has been published in journals such as Urban Geography and Science, Technology, & Human Values, based on empirical studies of smart grid projects and living lab methodologies.

Språkvelger

Ingrid Foss Ballo