Fostering “Energy Communities”: An Ethnographic-SECI Approach to User-Centered Residential Micro-Smart Grid Adoption

This paper presents a user-centered approach to understanding the social context of smart residential microgrid adoption, with a focus on the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization) model of knowledge creation. The objective is to identify the social characteristics that contribute to the social acceptance of smart residential microgrids, particularly from the perspective of prosumers interacting with AI. The study focuses on 12 Swiss smart grid stakeholders, including those who live in eco-neighborhoods, and own solar panels, plus three focus groups with experts. The study found that trust, community, and shared values are key social factors influencing the adoption of residential smart microgrids. Results also show how the SECI model could facilitate the creation and sharing of knowledge about energy management and sustainability practices, knowing that smart grids rely primarily on AI or explicit knowledge (Combination) and that successful implementation should as well, regarding this theory, focus on tacit knowledge (Socialization).