The Making of Power Shortage: The Sociotechnical Imaginary of Nationalist High Modernism and Its Pragmatic Rationality in Electricity Planning in Taiwan

Abstract

High modernism, the dominant sociotechnical imagination in postwar Taiwan, manifested itself in tacit answers to the questions of what a better society would look like, and the most pragmatic and viable approach to make the particular dreamed-of future become reality. This paper explores the exclusion of alternative energy futures brought about by a high modernist imaginary. This imaginary underlies a strategy of emphasizing shortage at present and prosperity in the future-as long as the current shortage is solved in a reliable way. Focusing on the contention over energy supply between 2011 and 2015, this paper provides an analysis of how power shortage is presented in discursive ambiguity, how the claimed crisis over electricity shortage moves to the centre of public debate via the institutional practices of power rationing, and how its public authority is established through collective witness. Renewable energy is continually represented as an 'immature' and 'unviable' technology when it comes to satisfying the nation's need, through particular routinised practices in the calculation of 'reserve margins' in electricity planning and the collective witnessing of (limited) 'operating reserves'. We argue that both of these come with their own assumptions and political implications and, therefore, invite scrutiny.

Disrupting the Grid

“…Events like fi res, hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, droughts, and earthquakes can all lead to outages. However, as the literature demonstrates, while so-called natural disasters (slow or fast) may be the proximate cause of such shutdowns, these events are best read within longer trajectories of grid development and management (Mains 2012;Nucho 2022;Yang et al 2018). Accounts of protracted power outages across Puerto Rico following the 2017 landfall of Hurricane Maria emphasize the years-long patterns of underinvestment in and deferred maintenance of the island's grid that left it so extraordinarily vulnerable to the storm's impacts (Bonilla 2020;Llorens 2018;Smith-Nonini 2020).…”

Multiple Imaginaries of the Fossil Fuel Free Future : Biogas and Electricity in Swedish Urban Transport

“…Scalarity of imaginaries -Within the previous literature on sociotechnical imaginaries, the majority of studies have emphasized the role of hegemonic national sociotechnical imaginaries. This literature builds on the seminal work by Jasanoff & Kim (2009) and includes numerous other studies on national energy imaginaries (Yang et al 2018;Ballo 2015;Kuchler & Bridge 2018;Simmet 2018). Taking a national approach to the study of imaginaries works in many cases because energy imaginaries are often nationally held, particularly as a result of the connection between imaginaries and policy-making discussed above.…”