Assessing the societal impact of smart grids: Outcomes of a collaborative research project

Assessing the societal contributions of research is not simple, especially for research projects that produce outputs with low technology readiness level. This paper analyses the potential societal impacts of research resulting in technologies with low maturity, but with the potential to be further developed in the long-term. It uses the case of the ESGRIDS (Enhancing Smart Grids for Sustainability) collaborative research project and its outputs aimed at enhancing smart grids for sustainability. Data was collected from the four participant research teams through two sequential questionnaires about technologies' state of development and expected long-term societal effects. Among the main results, we underscore the influence of individual perceptions and organisational contexts over the process of eliciting future developments. The analysis of technologies' status, barriers for market uptake, and potential future developments was translated into a technology roadmap, which outlined the time-dimension for technology maturity evolution and implementation impacts. The technologies developed within the ESGRIDS project can contribute to support consumers’ energy decision-making and to encourage them to have a more active role in the electricity market. Those technologies can also create job opportunities associated with the development of new products and services, and contribute to mitigating climate change by promoting the use of renewable energies thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions, in addition to contributing to energy cost reduction by optimizing the use of supply and demand resources. Future research avenues point towards a methodology that can be used for assessing the potential impacts of research projects with low technology readiness outputs.