The Flexibility Fix: Low-Carbon Energy Transition in the United Kingdom and the Spatiotemporality of Capital

Abstract

The ongoing transition from fossil to renewable energy is said by many within the energy industry to require a more “flexible” electricity system. The suggestion is that the variability of renewable energy resources, alongside the increasing load placed on the electricity grid by decentralized renewable generation and the electrification of heat and transport, requires an enhanced capacity to change the spatial and temporal profiles of electricity supply and demand. Drawing on research within the UK electricity sector, this article contends that electricity flexibility schemes might constitute a socioecological fix for capitalism. I discuss Andreas Malm’s claim that the spatiotemporality of renewable energy presents a limit to capital accumulation and suggest that this is a limit that UK flexibility initiatives seek to overcome. The article concludes by suggesting that electricity system flexibility should not be written off as an inherently reactionary sociotechnical project by virtue of its apparent enrollment within the reproduction of exploitative capitalist relations. Rather, I call attention to the political flexibility of electricity system flexibility and, in doing so, further develop ongoing attempts to theorize the socioecological fix in a more politicized manner.