Digitisation and Low-Carbon Energy Transitions

Abstract

The world is digitising as the need for low-carbon transitions gains urgency. This chapter introduces the emergent linkages between digitisation and decarbonisation-the twin transition. Important for grid stability, the twin transition is needed for greenhouse gas emission reduction, yet its energy efficiency is debatable. Rebound effects and data generation for and within the twin transition are critical issues that surface within socio-technical and political economic contexts. The chapter pulls together insights on situating digitisation and on realising imaginaries of the twin transition, articulating the value of conceptualising low-carbon transitions with explicit attention to digitisation as a phenomenological element of infrastructural change. It provides an overview of chapters across these themes, and synthesis reflections on a research agenda for ethnographies of digitisation and energy transitions.