User-technology interactions in the construction of user-driven configurations – lessons from Dutch civic energy communities

Abstract

In this research, we explore user innovations in five Dutch civic energy communities. We show how these user innovations where embedded in a wider community process around realizing desired socio-technical change, and how the rationale, conditions and competences needed to identify and implement user innovations are shaped by this wider process. This interplay of collective learning and implementing user innovations requires a variety of preparatory efforts by community members, that may be of a seminal importance to the eventual nature and success of new socio-technical arrangements. Moreover, it is suggested that the dynamics found here result from a specific user logic that may be characteristic more generally for user communities innovating in configurational settings, i.e. combining and tinkering with innovative as well as mundane technological devices into a local and tailored configurations.