The constitution of electricity demand in Central Manchester: practices, infrastructure and spaces Torik Holmes B.A. (Hons.), M.A. Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University September 2019 I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. I confirm that the word length conforms to the permitted maximum. ii Contents List of Charts, Figures, Tables and Images ....................................................... vi Abstract ......................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ x Chapter one: Introduction ............................................................................... 2 Electricity demand .......................................................................................................... 4 A growing dependence on electricity ..................................................................................... 5 Electricity and tackling climate change in the ‘city’ ................................................................ 6 Electricity demand in Central Manchester.............................................................................. 9 Orientating concepts .................................................................................................... 19 Demanding ‘bundles’ and ‘complexes’ of practice in Central Manchester .......................... 24 Practices and the electricity system in and beyond Central Manchester ............................ 26 Conceptualising the changing form and function of Central Manchester............................ 28 Conceptualising the electricity system ................................................................................. 30 Thesis outline ................................................................................................................ 33 Chapter two: Research design ....................................................................... 37 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 37 Key ideas and new topics ............................................................................................. 37 Practices, scale and demand ................................................................................................. 38 Infrastructure and space ....................................................................................................... 39 The ‘city’ ....................................................................................................................... 43 Central Manchester ...................................................................................................... 45 Electricity infrastructure ............................................................................................... 46 Four empirical studies .................................................................................................. 47 Study one: Chapter three - Land use change in the Northern Quarter (NQ) between 1984 and 2014 ................................................................................................................................ 50 Study two: Chapter four - (Not)made in Manchester ........................................................... 52 Study three: Chapter five - The Central Manchester Primary 33 kV Substation .................. 56 Study four: Chapter six - The organisation(s) of the electricity system(s) ............................ 58 The implications of conducting four studies ................................................................ 60 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 61 Chapter three: Land use change in the Northern Quarter between 1984 and 2014 ............................................................................................................. 64 Land use change categories as proxies for practice ‘bundles’ ..................................... 66 Tracking land use changes in the Northern Quarter .................................................... 69 Land use change in the Northern Quarter between 1984 and 2012 ........................... 71 Land use change in the Northern Quarter between 2013 and 2014 ........................... 81 Two trends of land use change in the Northern Quarter between 1984 and 2014 ..... 84 New questions .............................................................................................................. 85 Summary and connections with coming chapters ....................................................... 86 iii Chapter four: (Not)made in Manchester ........................................................ 88 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 88 ‘Lifting the burden’: The liberalisation of planning ...................................................... 90 The national liberalisation of planning ................................................................................. 91 The liberalisation of planning in Manchester ....................................................................... 93 City centre residentialisation ...................................................................................... 102 Buy-to-let mortgages and investor-led residentialisation .................................................. 104 The effect of a ‘liveable’ cities’ agenda ............................................................................... 106 Residential demand ............................................................................................................. 108 The effects of two international events on Central Manchester’s land use change .. 113 The 1996 IRA bomb ............................................................................................................. 114 The 2002 Commonwealth Games ....................................................................................... 119 Reading the events and trends in conjunction ................................................................... 123 More than multiplicity and open-ended change ........................................................ 124 Summary and recovering the missing masses ........................................................... 126 Chapter five: The Central Manchester 33 kV Primary Substation .................. 128 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 128 Situating the Central Manchester 33 kV Primary Substation .................................... 130 ‘Technological frames’ and infrastructural change over time ................................... 141 A ‘reactive’ change ..................................................................................................... 144 A ‘lumpy’ reaction ............................................................................................................... 145 A site-specific reaction to ‘possible’ changes ..................................................................... 146 A calculated investment ...................................................................................................... 149 Reading the ‘reactive’ pieces together ............................................................................... 151 A ‘proactive’ response ................................................................................................ 152 Imagining and staying ahead of demand ............................................................................ 152 Envisioning and staying ahead of Manchester ................................................................... 156 Challenging and changing network stability and obduracy....................................... 158 Chapter summary and next steps .............................................................................. 160 Chapter six: The organisation(s) of electricity system(s) ............................... 162 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 162 Professional worldviews ............................................................................................. 165 A Manchester-city-centric view of the electricity system .......................................... 167 Making a Manchester-city-centric view of the electricity system ...................................... 168 ENW’s regional view of the electricity system ........................................................... 175 ENW’s regional distribution network .................................................................................. 176 Managing and investing in a system of ‘mini-grids’ ............................................................ 183 The market-focused international view of the electricity system .............................. 190 The organisation(s) of the international network............................................................... 191 Making the international market-focused view and version of the electricity system ...... 196 The implications of three views and versions............................................................. 201