Pictures of power play: Visual language and analysis of Victorian electricity

Australia’s electricity system is undergoing a transition, with each jurisdiction contributing to this shift. Despite progress, about 70% of Victoria’s electricity is still generated from brown coal, underscoring the importance of understanding its historical development to inform future transitions. This article presents the Socio-Technical Layout (STL) framework as a graphical tool to map, diagnose, and analyse key elements of socio-technical systems, including technologies, actors, markets and energy–money flows. Applying the STL to Victoria’s electricity system uncovers three development phases: emerging, public, and private; and reveals that: (i) complexity — traditionally linked to scale — depends on the lenses (technological, organisational) and viewpoint (household, system operator); and (ii) transformative actors institutionalised socio-technical solutions aligned with societal values and needs. This approach also carries implications for transition agendas. As an explanatory framework with diagnostic capabilities, STLs provide a common language to enhance participatory processes. Stakeholders can use STLs to identify areas ripe for change, test and evaluate potential modifications from different viewpoints, and identify what is needed to support them (new markets, actors). STLs can be formalised into computer models, bridging qualitative and quantitative research. STLs should be complementary to narratives and other transition frameworks, given their representational limitations. • First historical socio-technical analysis of Victoria’s (Australia) electricity system. • STLs for mapping and diagnosing electricity systems. • Actors interpret societal needs into roadmaps and national plans, shaping socio-technological configurations. • Victoria’s electricity evolution exhibits uneven changes in complexity, depending on the lens and viewpoint. • STLs can guide transition modelling, bridging qual/quant approaches.