Domains of Power

Introduction
For more than a century, the link between technological systems and political power has been clear. Centralised grids, heavy industry, and national utilities reflected the centralised authority of governments and corporations. Yet as we move into an era of distributed, renewable, and digital energy, that old alignment is breaking down.

W. Brian Arthur, the economist and complexity theorist, offers a powerful lens through which to understand this shift. His concept of “domains” — clusters of related technologies that evolve and interact as a whole — reveals how decentralised energy could reshape not only markets but the very structure of political and economic power.

Domains versus Individual Technologies
Arthur argues that the economy rarely transforms in response to a single technology. What truly changes society is the arrival of an entire domain — a body of technologies that work together and enable one another.

A single railway engine did not revolutionise transport and the world; the entire railway domain did — including steel production, surveying, scheduling, finance, logistics, and even the measurement of time itself. Likewise, the digital revolution emerged not from a lone computer but from the domain of semiconductors, software, data storage, and telecommunications. And today, the energy transition is being driven by the domain of solar PV, batteries, inverters, smart grids, and digital markets — not by any single component.

How Economies Encounter Domains
Arthur describes the economy as a living, adaptive system that “encounters” new bodies of technology rather than simply adopting them. This encounter forces reorganisation: industries evolve, institutions adapt, and new economic structures emerge.

When a domain arrives, everything shifts:
– Old industries decay or are restructured.
– New sectors, professions, and infrastructures arise.
– Regulation, finance, and ownership models evolve.
– Cultural and political norms adjust to the new possibilities.

This process of systemic adaptation — not invention alone — is what creates revolutions. We are in a revolution today, a revolution in the energy domain.

Technological Revolutions as Domain Emergence
Each major revolution in history reflects the rise of a domain. The Industrial Revolution was not about the steam engine but about the mechanical domain — metallurgy, precision tools, and factory organisation. The Digital Revolution was the coming of the digital domain — computing, networking, and information theory.

The emerging Energy Revolution is now defined by the decentralised energy domain: solar, batteries, EVs, and smart grids, all linked through data and flexibility markets. Together, these technologies are reshaping not just how we power our lives, but how we structure economies and political systems.

The Political Implications of Decentralised Energy
Energy has always been a political instrument. Centralised grids and fuel networks gave governments and monopolies immense power over economies and citizens. Decentralised energy disrupts that dynamic by redistributing generation and control.

Key implications include:
1. Energy Sovereignty – Communities that generate and store their own power can gain autonomy from central authorities.
2. Democratisation – Decisions about energy investment and management can move to local cooperatives and councils.
3. Economic Empowerment – Revenues from distributed generation can stay within local economies.
4. New Inequalities – Without fair policy, decentralisation could benefit wealthier early adopters first.
5. Institutional Reinvention – Regulators and utilities must adapt to a new world with millions of independent producers.

In short, decentralised energy transfers both electrical and political power from the centre to the edge.
Like all such changes these trends will be resisted by incumbents, and we are increasingly seeing the lengths the incumbents will go to such as spreading false information and confusion. How they do this is a subject in its own right.

Government’s Changing Role
The governments role does not vanish in a decentralised energy system — it needs to evolve. Their role shifts from direct control to orchestration and coordination. Regulation becomes about ensuring interoperability, fairness, and access rather than commanding production. The challenge for governments is to facilitate and encourage change and not over-protect the incumbents.

Countries like Germany, Denmark, and the UK are already experimenting with models that empower communities and aggregators. Citizen-owned energy cooperatives now account for a significant share of renewable capacity in Europe, while local flexibility markets in the UK are redefining how the grid is managed.

Global and Geopolitical Consequences
At the global level, the emergence of the decentralised energy domain challenges the geopolitical order built on fossil fuels. Energy independence weakens the leverage of oil and gas exporters as demand for fossil fuels declines, and we are seeing the traditional petrostates in the Middle East race to diversity. On the other hand the change strengthens the leverage of the suppliers of electricity domain technology, which right now means China. Developing nations can leapfrog directly to clean, distributed systems.

Cultural Shifts: Energy as a Commons
Beyond economics and politics, decentralised energy carries deep cultural meaning. When people produce and manage their own electricity, they will begin to see energy differently. Awareness of consumption grows, and communities could become more engaged in managing collective assets.

This cultural transformation could foster new forms of civic participation, linking sustainability to democratic renewal.

Arthur’s Insight Applied to the Energy Domain
Arthur’s insight — that “the economy does not adopt a new body of technology; it encounters it” — captures what is happening today. The economy is encountering the decentralised energy domain, and in the process, it is reorganising itself.

Utilities are becoming service platforms, citizens are becoming producers, and entire markets are being redesigned around flexibility and data. What we are witnessing is not merely an energy transition, but a profound restructuring of how society distributes and governs power itself. Like all transitions it will not be a smooth journey and there will be bottlenecks, detours and even defeats along the way. The fundamental direction however if clear.

Conclusion: Rewiring Power
The 20th century’s centralised grid mirrored the centralised state; the 21st century’s distributed energy mirrors a more networked, participatory society. The technologies of solar, batteries, and digital control are not just changing our infrastructure — they are redefining the architecture of power.

In Arthur’s terms, we are living through the emergence of a new domain — one that will ultimately reshape economies, politics, and culture as deeply as the industrial and digital domains did before. As the decentralised energy domain matures, it will continue to blur the boundary between electrical power and political power — placing both increasingly in the hands of citizens.