Uncomfortable Energy Encounters

A sudden darkness. An unexpected silence. A short moment of disorientation until the senses adjust and the body starts to relax again. A blackout. In personal energy memories, the sudden absence of electricity evokes something extraordinary and thus memorable. Blackouts are moments of vulnerability as they reveal the dependencies on electricity for daily chores and activities. Ironically, through its absence, the infrastructure that connects the single housing units with the energy producing units becomes tangible, bringing attention to the hidden grid that connects distant places and keeps daily life flowing. But it is not only through this material network one could find a sense of community. Always remembered in the seasons of long nights and short days, memories of blackouts tend to be described as moments of community and coziness under candlelight, of a collective and shared experience that brings together rather than separates. 

In the interactive exhibition Transmission Tower, developed by Suzanne Ros, PhD candidate with the Energy Lives! project, visitors were invited to reflect on energy as something lived, remembered and imagined across generations. Connecting the past and the future through everyday energy experiences, the symbolic transmission towers and its lines put the infrastructure through which we as citizens and people meet energy at centre stage. In this invitation to actively think about personal energy experiences and changes that have happened throughout one’s life, visitors were encouraged to pay attention to that that usually goes unnoticed. 

Yet energy infrastructures such as pylons and power stations are no neutral objects. They are symbols of politics, processes and experiences. For example, one visitor shared the story of the transmission tower in the backyard of their childhood home until one day the lines were placed underground and receded from sight. These objects are of cultural value and present different and at times opposing perceptions and stories about regional and national developments. Whereas for one person the construction of the dam for the hydropower plant Ulla-Førre at the county borders of Rogaland and Agder presents a symbol of modernity and engineering power, for another the same construction is a symbol of displacement and loss as their family home had to give way for the water magazine. 

Although energy infrastructures and energy use cannot be separated from emotions and cultural values, in public debates, emotions are often framed as irrational to discredit citizens’ concerns about energy construction projects and plans. Instead, one can observe a technocratic energy policy debate dominated by apparently objective forecasts on ever growing energy production and of visions about endless energy sources, all the while historical research has shown how such forecasts have been constructed and used to promote certain energy fuels and industries. Little attention is paid to the undercurrent of contemporary debates about energy capacities, production, security, and international markets: the fear of losing the energy comfort that the Norwegian society has enjoyed for the past century. The rush for an ever-greater expansion of the electricity grid and domestic energy production is driven by a geopolitical reality but it is also driven by emotions and expectations. 

While we do need to decarbonise heavy industry, household heating and transport if we as a society are serious about limiting the effects of the ever faster evolving global climate crisis caused by human activity over the past centuries, it is equally important to ask what this expansion of energy production is going to be used for? Current plans for the construction of data centres and its energy use as well as rare earth mineral mining across Norway are to degrade valuable areas for agricultural production, to rode protected forests, and to cut through habitats crucial for threatened species only to sustain a comfort we as a society have gotten used to and are being sold by multinational companies and other businesses.  

Forecasts can be understood as mirrors of contemporary values and at the same time they alienate. Many of the memories written on the postcards we collected in the exhibition were –perhaps unsurprisingly–about shared moments, about relations between people and to the material. Perhaps a step to counter this alienation –both in terms of where the energy we use in daily comes from, how it is produced, and its materiality– is to pay attention to the feelings of energy discomfort that may arise and to think about what energy comfort entails? As Jens Kaae Fisker urged us to think about: there is not only a material comfort but also a moral comfort in our everyday energy production and use. 

We would like to thank Aslak Sira Myhre (Lyse), Helena Nynäs (NVE), Jens Kaae Fisker (UiS), Kirsten Welschemeyer (MAD Arkitekter) and Monica Dahlmo (Statsforvaltaren i Rogaland) for their time and engagement in the two public conversations, as well as Litteraturhuset i Stavanger for hosting the two events. 

This is the third blog post about the Infrastructural Citizen Week 2026, which was organised by the Energy Lives! project team members in Gothenburg, Stavanger and Aarhus from 23-29 March 2026. The Infrastructural Citizen Week 2026 focused on memories and lived experiences of past energy transitions.