Devising the consumer of the competitive electricity market: the mundane meter, the unbundling doctrine, and the re-bundling of choice

This paper follows the sinuous trajectory of the joint design of an electricity meter and the technical architecture of the smart home in France. The analysis points to the articulation between the mundane work of material and market design and the profound, pervasive, and political issue of ‘agencing’ consumption. Three figures of the consumer appeared along with the evolving design of the smart home and meter: a behavioural energy saver; a market offer chooser, and an attached consumer. The ‘unbundling’ doctrine, which states that competition must be sorted out from monopoly in order for the electricity market to function, was often invoked to justify changes in the smart meter and smart home designs. The role of the doctrine was, however, ambiguous. As a rather abstract perspective on the working of markets, unbundling seems to be exceeded by concrete and mundane marketing attempts at re-bundling choice. And yet consumer figures doctrinally compatible with classical/neoliberal economics, which considers the consumer to be an autonomous self, leave open the ground for an attached consumer to emerge, suggesting that the consumer is in fact always ‘attached’ rather than detached.