Web Science Summer School - Internet-Energy interface

I took a few relaxing days off in London to recuperate following the Web Science Summer School (with visits to some rather fine vegetarian restaurants and Ashtanga Yoga London). Having reflected a little on the summer school programme, which was packed full of insightful and interesting talks and conversations, I have quickly put together a list of the ideas it stimulated at the energy-web interface.

Transitions

• Applying socio-technical (or co evolutionary) transition theory to analyse the lessons from the development of the web for energy demand reduction within a smart world/infrastructure.
• Mapping and understanding the implications of potential web failures for resilience of the energy system (today and in a smart world). For example, a socio-technical systems analysis of the Internet related risks to the energy system.
• Could I map where energy related open/web data is now? And envision where it could be in the future?

Ethics

• If there is a second order obligation to seek reconcile ethical objectives with other objectives when designing a systems. How should smart grid designers seek to reconcile privacy vs. energy systems sustainability, security andaffordability?
• What are the implications of life mining including smart grid data?

Public perceptions of the energy system

• Is there value in developing understanding of the current role of the web in the public discourse around energy? For example analysis of page view and edits data on wikipedia of energy related pages, and comparison with analysis of other areas of the web such as user comments on energy related newspaper articles (e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/22/energy-policy-government-nuclear-wind).

Smart homes

• What insight and inspiration can be drawn from the NoTube project and applied to energy demand reduction within a smart home context? For example:
• Is there value in linking energy consumption to domestic activity log (e.g. not just tv consumed x kwh, but watching prog y consumed x kwh)?
• In the NoTube project the viewing data of friends and family was of much greater interest than the users own data, would there be a similar situation for energy demand data?

Crowdsourcing

• How does the wisdom of friends/crowds approach fit with energy demand reduction?

Law

• Privacy in the IoT (and what the law can do to protect privacy)?
• What are the governance models for the smart grid (as an IoT application)? Or more broadly, what are the governance models for the smart infrastructure that could enable MUSCos (Multi Utility Service Companies)