ABSTRACT
Energy is an invisible materiality, an inevitable part of our lives and inseparable from our futures with emerging technologies. Electricity is implicated in questions relating to our climate futures, to how we structure and experience our everyday routines, and how we anticipate our mundane quotidian and our global futures. Research in everyday life in the present and possible futures of people who live with electricity and technologies tells stories that complicate dominant narratives and which propose technological solutions involving the automation and optimisation of energy systems. I argue that we need to focus on the everyday as a site through which to re-think the notions of energy supply and demand, which characterise dominant narratives about energy and technology futures. We should differently design energy futures with and for people, in ways that position human and planetary health anew. We should seek ways to enable people and the planet (and all that constitute it) to actively shape this process, and in doing so we must consider how ethical and inclusive relations between automated systems and technologies and people might come about.
