The Socio-Technical Governance of Smart City to Scaffold City Energy Transition Policy

• Published in: Civil engineering and architecture 2021-08, Vol.9 (5), p.1409-1420
• Main Authors: Wahyuddin, Yasser, Wibowo, Mochamad Agung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Architecture, space management; Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science; Sociology
• ISSN: 2332-1091; 2332-1121
• DOI: 10.13189/cea.2021.090514

The vague concepts of the Smart city have left a significant gap for researchers to amplify the knowledge cavity. This work delved into the implementation of Smart city in The Metropolis of Lyon, France, which strongly involved public and private governance. A project named Smart Electric Lyon (SEL), organized by the Group Electricté de France (EDF), reflects Lyon's urban ecosystem as a test-bed platform to demonstrate Smart meter technology. In return, The Metropolis of Lyon seized the opportunity to promote SEL as a new reference for the local Energy Transition initiatives. This work underlined the governance model of SEL as a Smart city that encompassed a plethora of interests in both public and private. Here, the governance is comprehended in two ways, the first was the role of SEL as a technical setting to satisfy the EDF Smart meter experiments and the second was the Janus of the socio-technical and politics of SEL that compel with the local agenda. This work employed a qualitative method, deploying in-depth semi-structured interviews with dozens of key actors and intense field observations. The findings showcase SEL Smart city project as a co-production of the public and private interests rather than a merely digital innovation process. The approach through the territorial standpoint has allowed depicting a multilevel interest from different stakeholders culminated under the form of a Smart city on the city stage.