Local Energy Communities: Emergence, Places, Organizations, Decision Tools 9781032190662, 9781032190693, 9781003257547

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Local Energy Communities

This book draws on social science analysis to understand the ongoing dynamics within and surrounding Local Energy Communities in reliably electrified countries: Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It offers a comprehensive overview of recent results and thus outlines a diversity of drivers and levers for scaling up energy communities or, at least, local energy sharing. Analysing the main types of energy communities such as collective self-consumption, citizen cooperatives and peer-to-peer digital platforms, the book does not only raise new questions for social scientists; it also offers a comprehensive overview for all those contributing to the circular economy and the decentralization of energy production in inhabited areas where energy consumption is concentrated. This book provides input for the ongoing debates in many European countries implementing the national law on the European directives for energy communities. Furthermore, without evading the antagonism between cooperative and market approaches, or the contradictions between different issues, the book outlines the innovative decision-making tools that can facilitate the development of local energy production and sharing systems. As well as being of interest to postgraduates and researchers in the field of energy studies, this book will be vital to energy professionals looking to support local energy communities’ decision-making and design, who wish to consider sociological, organizational and territorial dimensions. Gilles Debizet is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Université Grenoble Alpes and a researcher at the Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory since 2006. His research focuses on the integration of climate issues in the making of the contemporary city. He is a member of scientific committees (Université Grenoble Alpes, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Réseau RAMAU). He has co-lead the Eco-SESA Cross-Disciplinary Programme since 2017. Marta Pappalardo is an Architect, with a PhD in Urban Planning, currently researcher at the Institute of Urban Planning and Alpine Geography

and Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Science Po Grenoble). Her research focuses on the practices of occupation and management of energy-efficient buildings and on the governance of energy communities. Frédéric Wurtz is a CNRS senior researcher at Grenoble Electrical Engineering Laboratory (G2ELAB) of Grenoble INP - Université Grenoble Alpes and CNRS. He has developed skills at the interface of engineering and social science in the design of energy systems: typically, cars, flights, smart-buildings and smart-grids, eco-districts, smart districts and smart cities, with a current focus on micro-grids and local energy communities.

Routledge Explorations in Energy Studies

Perspectives on Energy Poverty in Post-Communist Europe Edited by George Jiglau, Anca Sinea, Ute Dubois and Philipp Biermann Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South Balancing Urgency and Justice Edited by Ankit Kumar, Johanna Höffken and Auke Pols Assembling Petroleum Production and Climate Change in Ecuador and Norway Elisabeth Marta Tómmerbakk International Law and Renewable Energy Investment in the Global South Avidan Kent Local Energy Governance Opportunities and Challenges for Renewable and Decentralised Energy in France and Japan Edited by Magali Dreyfus and Aki Suwa Local Energy Communities Emergence, Places, Organizations, Decision Tools Edited by Gilles Debizet, Marta Pappalardo, and Frédéric Wurtz The Politics of Energy Security Critical Security Studies, New Materialism and Governmentality Johannes Kester

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Explorations-in-Studies/book-series/REENS

Local Energy Communities Emergence, Places, Organizations, Decision Tools

Edited by Gilles Debizet, Marta Pappalardo, and Frédéric Wurtz

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Gilles Debizet, Marta Pappalardo, and Frédéric Wurtz; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Gilles Debizet, Marta Pappalardo, and Frédéric Wurtz to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-032-19066-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-19069-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-25754-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547 Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

This book is dedicated to all those actively working towards a carbon-neutral world in the near future. Special thanks to those who took part in the field surveys and the research, without whom the authors would not have been able to reach their conclusions.

Contents

List of contributors Preface Origin of the book Framework of the book Acknowledgements

xiii xix xx xxi xxv

Introduction Social sciences introduction. Local energy communities: state of the art and chapters’ cross-sectional analysis

1

GI L L E S DE BI Z E T A N D M A RTA PA PPA L A R D O

Engineering sciences introduction. Local energy Communities: transversal reading

18

F R É DÉ R IC W U RT Z

SECTION A: INTRODUCTION

Motivations and internal/local dynamics of energy sharing communities

27

A.1 Inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to renewable energy pooling and sharing: a prospective scenario approach

31

A N T OI N E M A RT I N , M A R I E - F R A NC E AGNOL E T T I A N D E R IC BR A NGI E R

A.2 Shared geothermal energy projects in Montreal: the importance of pre-existing collective action spaces M Y R I A M PROU L X A N D S OPH I E VA N N E S T E

49

x Contents

A.3 Energy communities and commons: rethinking collective action through inhabited spaces

67

M A RTA PA PPA L A R D O

A.4 Anticipating energy communities in urban projects: challenges and limits

87

I N È S R A M I R E Z - C OB O, GI L L E S DE BI Z E T A N D SI LV È R E T R I B OU T

SECTION B: INTRODUCTION

Collective self-consumption: regulatory framework set-up and controversies

105

B.1 Regulatory framework of collective self-consumption operations: comparative study France, Spain, Germany

110

BL A NC H E L OR M E T E AU

B.2 The controversial emergence of collective self-consumption in France

126

T H I BAU T FON T E N E AU

SECTION C: INTRODUCTION

Citizen cooperatives: inter-scalar idealizing, teaching and structuring for scaling up

149

C.1 Trajectories of renewable energy communities: between democratic processes and economic constraints

153

A R M E L L E G OM E Z , BE NJA M I N T Y L A N D AU DE P O T T I E R

C.2 Emergence and transformation of Enercoop: the French network of electricity supply cooperatives as a new social economy initiative

172

RÉMI MAÎTRE

C.3 Cooperation within and the institutionalization of participatory renewable energy projects in France: a focus on co-developed citizen, public, and private partnership projects A M É L I E A RT I S , J US T I N E BA L L ON , D OR I A N L I T V I N E , É M I L I E DI A S A N D S Y LV I E BL A NGY

192

Contents  xi SECTION D: INTRODUCTION

Digital services for peer-to-peer communities: regulatory framework and market

213

D.1 Emerging digital business models for energy communities: enablers for citizen participation in the energy transition? – Perspectives from Germany

219

C H R I S T I N E DE DE A N D MON I K A H E Y DE R

D.2 Digital technologies for consumer-centred energy markets: opportunities and risks of an energy internet

252

H UG O S C HÖN BE C K , A N NA G OR BAT C H E VA A N D A L E X A N DR A S C H N E I DE R S

D.3 Digital energy trading platforms: an economic analysis

271

T HOM A S C ORTA DE A N D J E A N - C H R I S T OPH E P OU D OU

SECTION E: INTRODUCTION

Design energy projects for multi-stakeholders’ communities: decision support tools

291

E.1 Proposal to take into account stakeholders’ motivations in models of optimization decision support tools

295

L OU MOR R I E T, F R É DÉ R IC W U RT Z A N D GI L L E S DE BI Z E T

E.2 Decision support for technical design of on-the-spot renewable energy projects involving several stakeholders

313

JAU M E F I T Ó, SAC H A HODE NC Q , L OU MOR R I E T, J U L I E N R A MOUS SE , F R É DÉ R IC W U RT Z A N D GI L L E S DE BI Z E T

Index

341

Contributors

Marie-France Agnoletti, UFR Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Université de Lorraine, France Marie-France Agnoletti is a lecturer in Psychology and Social Psychology at the University of Lorraine. Her work focuses on impression management in high-stakes situations such as recruitment. She also conducts research on social representations and the acceptability of the use of new energies, their extraction and storage underground. Amélie Artis, Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory, Université Grenoble Alpes, Sciences Po Grenoble, CNRS, France Amélie Artis is an Associate Professor in Economics at Sciences Po Grenoble and Pacte Laboratory (CNRS). She analyses the evolution of co-operatives in the economic system between continuity and renewal, with historical and institutional approaches at the core of her research. She is head of Chair Social Economy in Sciences Po Grenoble and head of several projects. Justine Ballon, Laboratoire Dynamique Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces (LADYSS), Université de Paris, France Justine Ballon holds a PhD in Economics from the Université de Paris. Her work focuses on the process of social innovation towards a social transformation from an institutional perspective in economics. She studies the organization, the business model and the governance of cooperatives in the context of changes at work and the ecological transition. Sylvie Blangy, Centre d’Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive (CEFE), CNRS, Université Montpellier, EPHE, IRD, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France Sylvie Blangy is a senior researcher at the French National Research Centre (CNRS). She works on participatory action research (PAR) methodologies and sustainable development strategies. She is collaborating with Indigenous communities in the Arctic and citizen-based associations in France to develop new ways to link local expertise and scientific knowledge.

xiv Contributors Eric Brangier, PErSEUs, Université de Lorraine, France Eric Brangier is a Full Professor in Ergonomics at the Université de Lorraine. Prof. Brangier’s work has resulted in 400+ papers, communications, reports and keynotes on different human-technology-related issues. Some of his recent work has tackled criteria for persuasive and gamified interfaces, ergonomics of shareable things, as well as human-technology symbiosis and prospective ergonomics. Thomas Cortade, Montpellier Recherche en Economie (MRE), Montpellier Université d’Excellence (MUSE), University of Montpellier, France Thomas Cortade is an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Montpellier and a researcher at Montpellier Recherche en Economie. His research covers industrial organization, telecommunications and internet economics. He has published articles in international reviews and scientific books. Gilles Debizet, Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble, France Gilles Debizet is a Professor in Urban Planning at Grenoble Alps University and a researcher at the Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory. His research focuses on the integration of climate issues in the making of the contemporary city. Since 2017, he co-leads the Eco-SESA Cross-Disciplinary Programme (https://ecosesa.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/) exploring energy pooling and sharing at district scale. Christine Dede, European Institute for Energy Research (KIT, EDF), Karlsruhe, Germany Christine Dede has worked at the European Institute for Energy Research (EIfER), an initiative by Electricité de France (EDF) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Her main interest lies in community-based business models providing flexibility services and the regulatory frameworks that apply. She gained experience at the International Energy Agency (IEA). Émilie Dias, Independent consultant, France Émilie Dias holds a Master’s degree in Biodiversity Management (Man and Biosphere) from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France. She is currently a research engineer in charge of supporting participatory research projects related to ecological transition issues. Jaume Fitó, Laboratoire Optimisation de la Conception et Ingénierie de l’Environnement (LOCIE), CNRS, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Polytech Annecy-Chambéry, France Jaume Fitó  holds a PhD in Fluid Thermodynamics Engineering from the Rovira i Virgili University (Spain). He is currently a Postdoctoral

Contributors  xv Researcher at the University of Savoy Mont Blanc (France). His areas of expertise are thermodynamic analysis, exergy analysis, multi-energy networks and hybrid sorption cycles for refrigeration with energy storage. Thibaut Fonteneau, Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble, France Thibaut Fonteneau is graduated from Sciences Po Grenoble. His main research is about the emergence of collective self-consumption as a PhD candidate. Based on economic sociology, his work is focused on the controversies surrounding the implementation of a new instrument and its appropriation by energy communities. He is now working as an Energy Analyst for the company Enerdata. Armelle Gomez, Centre Emile Durkheim, CNRS, Sciences Po Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, France Armelle Gomez is an associate researcher at the Centre Emile Durkheim – SciencePo Bordeaux. Her main research work is about the politicization of territorialized economic activities, through the theory of value in economics. She applied this analysis on various issues such as energy, eco-design tools and agriculture. Anna Gorbatcheva, UCL Energy Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom Anna Gorbatcheva is a PhD candidate at the University College London. Her research focuses on scalability issues of P2P energy trading systems. She also contributes to the work of the Global Observatory on Peer-toPeer Energy Trading (GO-P2P) and the Energy Trading Taskforce between GO-P2P and the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA). Monika Heyder, ICLEI Europe, Germany Monika Heyder has worked at the European Institute for Energy Research (EIfER), an initiative by Electricité de France (EDF) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Her research focuses on community participation for sustainable development. In 2021, she joined ICLEI Europe as Senior Officer supporting the NetZeroCities project. Sacha Hodencq, Grenoble Electrical Engineering Laboratory (G2ELAB), Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, France Sacha Hodencq graduated from the Grenoble Institute of Engineering (Grenoble INP) in 2017. Since 2019, he has been preparing his PhD thesis in Electrical Engineering – his research focus has been on the development of models, methods and tools to enable a collaborative and open design approach to energy components and systems. Dorian Litvine, Cabinet ISEA – action-research, consulting and training, Florensac, France

xvi Contributors Dorian Litvine has been working as a researcher and consultant for more than 20 years, with a speciality in behavioural approaches, participatory systems and empirical methodology in the areas of energy, building and water. Blanche Lormeteau, IODE Laboratory, UMR CNRS 6262, France The author of a thesis on Thermal Energy and Law (2014), Blanche Lormeteau is a specialist in Energy Law and Climate Change Law. She focuses on the concepts of energy justice, energy citizenship and energy autonomy. Rémi Maître, CERTOP, Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès, Toulouse, France Rémi Maître is a doctoral student at Toulouse 2 University and member of CERTOP. His thesis, co-supervised by M.-C. Zélem and J. Prades, focuses on energy cooperatives as new social economy initiative and questions the collective intelligence of their functioning and the biographical trajectories and socio-energetic cultures of their members. Antoine Martin, PErSEUs, Université de Lorraine, Metz, France Antoine Martin holds a PhD in ergonomics from Université de Lorraine. After focusing on energy for housing and the anticipation of users’ needs, his current work focuses on understanding/improving the ergonomics of low-techs and applying ergonomics to projects aimed at making human activity compatible with planetary boundaries. Lou Morriet, Grenoble Electrical Engineering Laboratory (G2ELAB), Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP and Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble, France Lou Morriet holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Grenoble Alpes University (France). Her dissertation was on local and low carbon energy systems. She analysed technical systems and associated stakeholders, based on social science methodology, to model and optimize the projects. She works now at the Syndicat Energies Haute-Vienne. Marta Pappalardo, Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble, France Marta Pappalardo, Architect, holds a PhD in Urban Planning, and is currently temporary lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Urban Planning and Alpine Geography of Grenoble and Pacte research centre. Since 2017, she is a member of the CDP IDEX Eco-SESA, with research on the practices of occupation and management of energy-efficient buildings and on the governance of energy communities.

Contributors  xvii Aude Pottier, Association du Pôle Environnement Sud-Aquitain, Pôle Territorial de Coopération Economique (APESA-PTCE), Tarnos, France Aude Pottier holds a doctorate in Human Geography from the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour (France). She works as a researcher at APESA on the territorial integration of transition projects whether they are imposed on the actors or carried by them. Jean-Christophe Poudou, Montpellier Recherche en Economie, Université de Montpellier, France Jean-Christophe Poudou  is a Full Professor in Economics at the University of Montpellier, a researcher at Montpellier Recherche en Economie, and a member of the Labex Entreprendre research cluster. His research, covering industrial organization, innovation and energy economics, has been published in articles, in international reviews, as well as in scientific books. Myriam Proulx, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Montréal (Québec), Canada Myriam Proulx holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and is currently a Master’s student in Urban Studies at INRS. Her main research interests are geothermal energy, energy transition and urban governance. Inès Ramirez-Cobo, UMR IDEES 6266 CNRS, Université du Havre Normandie, Le Havre, France Inès Ramirez-Cobo  is an Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the Université du Havre. She investigates the ongoing transformations of the urban design processes. Her latest work focuses on innovative projects that allow territories to adapt to current transition issues (technical, environmental, democratic) such as eco-districts including energy objectives. Julien Ramousse, Laboratoire Optimisation de la Conception et Ingénierie de l’Environnement (LOCIE), CNRS, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Polytech Annecy-Chambéry, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France Julien Ramousse is an Associate Professor in the LOCIE lab of Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France. His work focuses on energy management and efficiency both at system and district scales, based on thermodynamic approach including exergy and economic assessments. He is author of 30 peer-review papers and 40 international conferences. Alexandra Schneiders, Energy Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom Alexandra Schneiders  is a Senior Research Associate at the UCL Energy Institute and the Task Leader of the Global Observatory on Peer-toPeer, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models

xviii Contributors (GO-P2P), a Task of the User-Centred Technology Collaboration Programme (Users TCP) by the International Energy Agency. Hugo Schönbeck, Entrepreneur, GO-P2P network, The Netherlands Hugo Schönbeck,  originally trained as a lawyer and diplomat, has been working as an entrepreneur for 20 years now on creating a better world. Recent MSc Action Research University of Bath, he is a member of the GO-P2P network. An inspiring connector, he always finds the best possible people for any given project or enterprise. Silvère Tribout, Pacte Social Sciences Laboratory and Institut d’Urbanisme et de Géographie Alpine / Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Science Po Grenoble, France Silvère Tribout is a lecturer in urban planning at the Institut d’Urbanisme et de Géographie Alpine (Grenoble Alpes University). He is a member of the Pacte laboratory. His work focuses on the transformation of project practices and architectural and urban design professions. Benjamin Tyl, Association du Pôle Environnement Sud-Aquitain, Pôle Territorial de Coopération Economique (APESA-PTCE), Tarnos, France Benjamin Tyl  is an eco-innovation research engineer at APESA. He obtained a PhD for his work on eco-innovation, more specifically on the contribution of creativity in eco-ideation processes. He carries out research on grassroots initiatives such as repair workshops or energy cooperatives, but also on the value notion in eco-design processes. Sophie L. Van Neste, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, INRS, Montréal, Canada Sophie L. Van Neste is an Associate Professor in Urban Studies at INRS. She holds the Canada Research Chair on Urban Climate Action. Her research focuses on urban political action to face climate change and experiment pathways of energy transition, considering the intersections with social inequalities and the politics of place. Frédéric Wurtz, Grenoble Electrical Engineering Laboratory (G2ELAB), Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, France Frédéric Wurtz is a CNRS senior researcher at Grenoble Electrical Engineering Laboratory (G2ELAB). He has developed skills in the design of complete systems using electrical energy: typically cars, flights, smart buildings and smart grids, eco-districts, smart districts and smart cities, with a current focus on micro-grids and local energy communities.

Preface

Renewable and waste energies are being increasingly scaled up at building, village and city levels. Energy sharing communities are emerging at the initiative of citizens, with the support of non-profit organizations, companies or local authorities. Energy projects and communities are introducing new forms of mediation between production and consumption, which question democratic principles like social justice and citizen participation, as well as the governance and design of energy systems. Considered as a grouping of individuals or legal entities actively involved in a project for the production and/or consumption of renewable energy, energy communities are emerging and spreading in Europe and elsewhere. They form an elastic object, where the representations of the actors bear as much weight as the material characteristics of the devices and the energy system itself. This movement for local energy production and sharing is part of the general backdrop of the fight against climate change, which calls for an environmental and energy transition. Our societies are becoming aware of their impact on the production, distribution, storage and consumption of energy. The transition from an energy system based on mass imported carbon-based stock energies (oil, coal, gas, etc.) to endogenous flow energies (solar, wind, etc.) is underway, with significant variations from country to country in terms of the role of nuclear power. This decarbonization of production by resources that are less controllable than fossil fuels calls for attention to the flexibility of the system, especially the power grid, which must constantly balance inflows and outflows. The economic and environmental costs of this decarbonization also call for the promotion of sobriety. In this context, local actors are getting to grips with the energy issue. They are investing in and using local renewable energy production and means of waste energy recovery; they are sharing energy via common and/or public networks. These communities are thus developing and deploying low-carbon renewable energy production activities and services. The involvement of citizens and communities is driven by social values of ecological commitment and participation that go beyond the sole objective of renewable energy production. It could induce individual and collective practices that limit the import of exogenous energies by aiming not only at sobriety but

xx Preface also at the temporal adaptation of energy uses to the moments of production, along with the development of storage means physically close to these uses. In other words, this involvement could have the effect of adapting local consumption to local production to minimize the demand for non-local energy production. Obviously, the emergence of such energy communities does not always have the same motives or effects, depending on whether the territory concerned is served by the electricity grid. Where there is no electricity grid, local renewable electricity production and distribution projects provide an essential service boosting both the quality of life of the inhabitants and economic activities. Where the grid fails and provides electricity intermittently, parallel systems are often implemented at the household or facility level, and sometimes on a larger scale. This book covers geographic areas where a highly reliable electric grid delivers electricity, sometimes complemented by a gas or heat network. In these areas, production facilities, group purchasing of renewable energy, collective self-consumption and any other community initiative related to energy are not motivated by access to reliable energy, except from a distant perspective of local post-collapse resilience. Other motivations are at play. Dealing with empirical cases in several European countries and Canada, the chapters in this book reveal practices and dynamics of change in countries and territories served by a reliable electricity grid. This book draws on social science analyses, and to a lesser degree, engineering science relative to energy communities, especially their emergence and organization, the regulatory framework and the design of technical solutions. These help to elucidate the ongoing dynamics within and surrounding Local Energy Communities in fully electrified countries such as Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. This work also focuses attention on new paradigms driving innovative tools for designing community energy systems. It reveals the controversies at – and between – different scales, while outlining a diversity of drivers and levers for scaling up energy communities or local energy sharing.

Origin of the book The 14 chapters that follow result from a selection of papers presented during the webinar series: “Energy communities for collective self-consumption: frameworks, practices and tools”. This was held by the Université Grenoble Alpes, France, in partnership with Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture (PUCA, State agency for innovation in these fields), from June to October 2020. The initiative of holding the conference and publishing the book was taken by the Eco-SESA Programme (https://ecosesa.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/

Preface  xxi eco-sesa-program/). Eco-SESA is one of the first seven Cross-Disciplinary Projects of the Grenoble Alpes University IDEX awarded under the “Initiative of Excellence” national label, a label reserved for the top-ten universities in France. The Eco-SESA programme spans 16 laboratories (Physical Sciences and Engineering/Social Sciences and Humanities). It addresses five key objectives for integrating on-the-spot renewable energy generation in urban areas: understanding the effects of the mass deployment of variable renewable energies; assessing the effects of self-consumption; understanding and predicting the behaviour of consumers and district stakeholders; governing and coordinating energy at the district/urban scale; and designing appropriate energy components and associated design tools. The current book is a direct contribution to two of the five research fronts of the Eco-SESA program: “Interactions modelling between buildings and with grids in a district” and “Architectures for integration of renewable on-thespot generation”.

Framework of the book Based on the selected papers from the webinar series, the book is organised in 5 sections. The central sections take a social science look at the three main forms of energy communities: collective self-consumption, citizen cooperatives and peer-to-peer digital service. The first section analyses the social construction of energy communities. The last section presents approaches to the design of community energy systems that take social dimensions into account. The first section presents people’s motivations for community energy and goes on to examine several initiatives led by collectives of inhabitants and urban production actors. The authors describe the emergence of Local Energy Communities in Europe and Canada. They highlight the internal and local dynamics and the weight of the incumbent actors. A1. Inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to renewable energy pooling and sharing: a prospective scenario approach Antoine Martin, Marie-France Agnoletti and Eric Brangier A2. Shared geothermal energy projects in Montreal: the importance of preexisting collective action spaces Myriam Proulx and Sophie Van Neste A3. E  nergy communities and commons: rethinking collective action through inhabited spaces Marta Pappalardo A4. A nticipating energy communities in urban projects: challenges and limits Inès Ramirez-Cobo, Gilles Debizet and Silvère Tribout

The following three sections each focus on a type of energy community. A  variety of perspectives – sociological, economic, political and legal – explore the three main forms as they emerge in Europe and begin to be

xxii Preface recognized in the national regulatory frameworks of Western countries. There follows a brief description of each section dedicated to a type of energy community. •

Collective self-consumption has been authorized for some years by national electricity regulations in Germany, Spain and France. Producers, or prosumers, and consumers located in the same place or nearby can thus exchange electricity and subtract these flows from the consumption billed by their regular supplier. Two chapters highlight the emergence of the scheme and the controversies sparked. In particular, they show how operational actors, such as grid operators, municipalities, social housing and companies designing and installing renewable energy facilities, have weighed in on adjustments to the scheme. B1. Regulatory framework of collective self-consumption operations: comparative study France, Spain, Germany Blanche Lormeteau B2. T  he controversial emergence of collective self-consumption in France Thibaut Fonteneau

•

Citizen cooperatives appear with the aim of locally producing energy or supplying electricity. They gather, on local, regional and national scales, to carry out renewable energy projects and promote the ideal of Local Energy Communities. These three chapters highlight internal decision processes, territorial partnerships, collective learning and network structuration, questioning the outlook of territorial spreading and national scaling up. C1. T  rajectories of renewable energy communities: between democratic processes and economic constraints Armelle Gomez, Benjamin Tyl, Aude Pottier C2. E  mergence and transformation of Enercoop: the French network of electricity supply cooperatives as a new social economy initiative Rémi Maître C3. C  ooperation within and the institutionalization of participatory renewable energy projects in France: a focus on co-developed citizen, public and private partnership projects Amélie Artis, Justine Ballon, Dorian Litvine, Émilie Dias and Sylvie Blangy

•

Peer-to-peer digital services link producers and consumers within virtual energy communities. Market-based approaches and digital paradigms, such as smart-grids, an energy internet and blockchain, are shaping new business models. Notions such as “prosumer”, “peer-topeer” and “guarantees of origin” introduce new ways of renewable energy sharing, and even local energy marketplaces. The different

Preface  xxiii chapters outline not only the intrinsic differences between market and cooperative approaches but also their potential complementarity. D1. E  merging digital business models for energy communities: enablers for citizen participation in the energy transition? – Perspectives from Germany Christine Dede and Monika Heyder D2. Digital technologies for consumer-centred energy markets: opportunities and risks of an energy internet Hugo Schönbeck, Anna Gorbatcheva and Alexandra Schneiders D3. Digital energy trading platforms: an economic analysis Thomas Cortade and Jean-Christophe Poudou

The last section presents tools for modelling and optimizing energy systems, taking into account the functioning of way energy communities work and their relations with public energy networks. Projects sharing “in-situ” renewable energy are carried out in various configurations and for different stakeholders. It is no longer just a question of defining an optimal technical solution from an economic stance, but rather one of reconciling the expectations, constraints and objectives of several stakeholders and environmental concerns. These two chapters rely on methodologies and tools, ranging from the design of the community system to everyday active management. E1. Proposal to take into account stakeholders’ motivations in models of optimization decision support tools Lou Morriet, Frédéric Wurtz and Gilles Debizet E2. D  ecision support for technical design of on-the-spot renewable energy projects involving several stakeholders Jaume Fito, Sacha Hodencq, Lou Morriet, Julien Ramousse, Frédéric Wurtz and Gilles Debizet

Each section of the book begins with a transition that summarizes the results of the previous section, introduces the common highlights of the chapters and presents each chapter individually. Reflecting a social science perspective, the first introduction by Gilles Debizet and Marta Pappalardo presents a state of the art on the community and local dimensions and a cross-sectional analysis of the chapters. In the second introduction, Frédéric Wurtz offers a transversal reading of the chapters from an engineering science perspective.

Acknowledgements

The editors are grateful to the scientific committee of the online webinars “Energy communities for collective self-consumption” that inspired this book. Namely, authors wish to thank Amélie Artis, Béatrice Cointe, Vincent Debusschere, Benoît Delinchant, Mattia Derosa, Michael Fell, Niki Frantzeskaki, Stéphane Genoud, Peter Karnøe, Oliver Kinnane, Olivier Labussière, Sylvie Laroche, Philippe Malbranche, Angélique Palle, Trine Pallesen, Fabiano Pallonetto, Julien Pouget, Ines Ramirez-Cobo, Vincent Reinbold, Thomas Reverdy, Stéphane Robin, Taoufik Souami, Nicolas Tixier, Silvère Tribout and Grégoire Wallenborn.1 The editors would also like to express their appreciation to the organization committee including Thibaut Fonteneau, François Ménard, Lou Morriet, Inès Ramirez-Cobo, Thomas Reverdy, Silvère Tribout and Nelly Vallance. They wish to thank all the speakers: François Menard, Cyril Martin De La Garde, Lilian Carpene, Andreas Rudinger, Bruno Bessis, Rémy Rigo-­ Mariani, Antoine Martin, Marie-France Agnoletti, eric Brangier, Mickael Tits, Benjamin Bernaud, Amel Achour, Badri Maher, Lotfi Guedria, Renaud Dachouffe, Fouad El Gohary, Lizette Reitsma, Cajsa Bartusch, Lucien Papilloud, Séphane Genoud, Jean-Marie Laurent, Frédéric Revaz, Olivier Labussière, Simone Di Pietro, Myriam Proulx, Sophie Van Neste, Silvère Tribout, Sylvie Laroche, Flora Aubert, Inès Ramirez-Cobo, Lou Morriet, Michael Fell, Christine Dede, Monika Heyder, Pia Laborgne, Pauline Raux-Defossez, Andreas Huber, Jean-Christophe Poudou, Thomas Cortade, Hugo Schönbeck, Wilfried Van Sark, Hugo Niesing, Avi Ganesan, Anne-Marie Pronk, Brian Mulder, Daniel Mugnier, Grégoire Wallenborn, Gabriella Doci, Rémi Maître, Armelle Gomez, Aude Pottier, Benjamin Tyl, Hana Kim, Julien Pouget, Yael zekaria, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Jaume Fito, Julien Ramousse, Sacha Hodencq, Alan Lauraux, Thomas Reverdy, Beatrice Cointe, Natasha Van Bommel, Thibaut Fonteneau, Arnaud Assie and Jens Lowitzsch.2 The editors are grateful to La Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for their financial support through the OREBE project (Optimisation holistique des Réseaux d’Energie et des Bâtiments producteurs d’énergies dans les

xxvi Acknowledgements Eco-quartiers). They are also grateful to the ADEME (the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management) for their financial support through the RETHINE project (Réseaux Electriques et THermiques InterconNEctés). This work has been partially supported by the CDP Eco-SESA Smart Energies in Districts receiving funding from the French National Research Agency (“ANR: Agence Nationale de la Recherche”) in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02). Finally, the editors warmly thank Nelly Vallance who planned the communication and managed the webinars with Marine Giraud from Act&Match, Anaïs Bovet and Etienne Cuisinier who provided the secretarial support for the book, and Clare St Lawrence for her valuable proofreading.

Notes 1 https://ce-ec.sciencesconf.org/?forward-action=index&forward-controller=index&lang=en 2 https://ecosesa.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/eco-sesa-program/news/replay-energy-communities-conference-839536.kjsp

Social sciences introduction. Local energy communities State of the art and chapters’ cross-sectional analysis Gilles Debizet and Marta Pappalardo 1 Introduction Since the beginning of the 2010s, the energy community model has attracted the interest of many actors, particularly because of the possibility of citizen participation in the decision-making process. This societal and political objective is intertwined with the environmental values of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy sobriety, while meeting the aim of moving away from traditional market logics. Many actors associate energy communities with the idea of spatial proximity or even interpersonal relations between their members. This enthusiasm has been translated into legislation, particularly on the European continent by the European RED II and IEMD directives, which legally define energy community and thus enable national and local policies favouring them. The definition of energy community in this book is not based on official criteria. It recognizes a diversity of objectives and actors: an energy community is a grouping of individuals or legal entities actively involved in a project of production and/or consumption of renewable energy. Thus, the community is an elastic object, where the representations of the actors have as much weight as the objective and technical characteristics of the devices. The feeling of being part of a community, the implementation of horizontal forms of governance, the interweaving of technical installations and spaces, or the local anchoring all contribute to shape such communities. This broad, polysemous definition is based on a scientific review of social science research, described below. It precedes the cross-sectional analysis of the chapters, which allows for a generalization of results and draws several lessons from this book.

2 English- and French-speaking state of the art on the concepts of community and local The literature on energy communities reveals major differences. The term energy community can define collectives ranging from a few participants up to several thousand members. It can be limited to the perimeter of a building

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-1

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or extend over vast territories, and be carried by very informal collectives, public authorities or digital social networks. The term has been widely used in social science literature, but with a marked difference according to linguistic areas. Its translation communauté énergétique has only recently appeared in the French-language literature (Debizet and Pappalardo, 2021; Pappalardo, 2021) whereas, for some years now, citizen-initiated renewable energy projects have been the subject of French-language journal articles. The concept of energy communities differs according to the disciplinary entries. To avoid taking stock of each of them, two broad structuring dimensions, beyond the object (abstract and physical) of energy, can be grouped together. The frst is organizational and is mainly expressed in English-speaking sociological works by the term community, i.e. the modes of involvement of actors, the dynamics of collective decision-making, and even questions of democracy. The second dimension is spatiality. This is linked to the location of organizations, resources and material devices, as well as the inclusion of energy communities in territorial dynamics. These aspects are studied by geographers and urban planners as well as social scientists in the feld of science and technology, especially related to the material and technological aspects. This short review provides also English-speaking readers with an overview of the ways in which French-language literature explores what Anglophones usually refer to as an energy community. 2.1 Community: an organizational dimension intertwined with the energy sector, internal democracy and local networks Depending on the cases studied, research cultures and the countries where the scientifc work is carried out, the concept of energy communities varies. While the German-speaking world is interested in citizen energy (Radtke and Henning, 2013), local energy initiatives (Blanchet, 2015; Hoppe et al., 2015) and energy ownership (Lowitzsch, 2018), the English-speaking world centres more on the community and how it works. Thus, the literature on energy communities focuses on so-called citizen or grassroots energy communities (Hargreaves et al., 2013; van der Waal, van der Windt and van Oost, 2018) and their forms of internal organization. The emphasis on the organizational and even institutionalization dynamics of energy communities (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012; Wirth, 2014) is confrmed in several works on energy communities in the UK, much of which focuses on the processes and effects of citizen involvement in projects (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008). These authors emphasize the empowerment of citizens and solidarity rather than a group of people living in the same space or under the same local authority, all of which is referred to by the notion of community in English (Hicks and Ison, 2018), which has positive connotations. Conversely, the literal French translation communauté may refer to the negative representation

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 3 of communitarianism. In this regard, Yalçin-Riollet, Garabuau-Moussaoui and Szuba (2014) point out how French linguistic culture leads to thinking of communities rather as spaces of withdrawal and entre-soi, keeping oneself to oneself, in contrast to the values of the Republic. Aubert and Souami (2021) note an overemphasis on the expression ‘energy community’ to describe the set of actors involved in local renewable energy production and sharing projects. In France, publications on energy communities are rather recent, but there is robust literature on the territorialization of energy and the organization of actors in the energy sector. This contributes to the emergence of three major scientifc debates: the mutation of economic models and the organization of the energy sector, the democratic forms of communities and the relationship with the network. French studies analyse the socio-economic forms of energy-producing communities, whether they are cooperatives, mixed economy companies or associations. The local level, considered as a space for the deployment of renewable energies, requires an adaptation of the energy project (Dobigny, 2012; Fontaine and Labussière, 2019; Nadaï et al., 2015). This research highlights the transcalar processes of trial and error and risk-taking that give these initiatives a political dimension that is opposed to national energy policy (Cointe, 2016). This research explores the transformative power of energy communities and even the establishment of an energy democracy. Through the control of energy infrastructures, citizen participation and the local distribution of benefts, energy communities are asserting themselves as alternative spaces to socio-economic and market models (Wokuri, 2021). These experiences are, however, strongly conditioned by the political and economic systems of the country where they emerge (Wokuri, 2019). Research on internal deliberation systems in communities (Pappalardo, 2021; Maître, 2021), reports a number of experiments in the governance of collectives, moving away from the model of representative democracy towards more horizontal forms, such as sociocracy or holacracy. According to these approaches, the distinctive character of the energy community does not lie so much in the type of renewable energy implemented, but rather in the experimentation of modes of governance. Thus, while energy communities in the form of production or supply cooperatives were the frst to be established in territories (Fontaine, 2019), in situ production and consumption communities are currently asserting themselves as spaces for political experimentation through the reorganization of collectives (Rumpala, 2013). This organization is deeply intertwined with the spaces where energy consumption practices take place (Pappalardo and Debizet, 2020). The relationship between the network and alternative organizational models, called ‘energy communities’ in the English-language literature, has given rise to several notions. One is the post-network (Coutard and Rutherford, 2011) of an ongoing transition from the traditional model of the large centralized network to logics built around the local dimension,

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while another is the notion of energy territories implemented on the scale of the city, the neighbourhood or the building (Souami, 2009). The notion of socio-energy assemblage has been used to analyse energy and urban governance in search of renewable or fatal energy (Aubert, 2020; Debizet et al., 2016; Hampikian, 2017), emphasizing the role of energy intermediaries (Tabourdeau and Debizet, 2017) in the wake of the French school of proximity (Bahers and Durand, 2017). The notion of energy autonomy points to spaces for the construction of new relationships to resources and new forms of organization (Lopez, Pellegrino and Coutard, 2019). 2.2 Local: the spatial dimensions of energy communities, outlined by places and proximities These debates between social scientists in the French-speaking world raise questions about the attention given to urban and territorial dynamics as a structuring variable for the action of energy communities. Some research identifes space as an indicator for classifying energy communities within taxonomic exercises. For example, Heiskanen et al. (2010) distinguish between geographically local communities, sectoral communities, communities of interest and virtual communities. Moroni et al. (2019) put forward a taxonomy of energy communities that introduces the territorial variable in their characterization, constructing a four-cell matrix. The frst distinction is made between place-based communities, i.e. communities built on a local dimension that is displayed and operative, and non-place-based communities. The second distinction concerns the ambitions of the community, which can be single-objective (particularly around the energy function) or multi-objective (single-purpose or multi-purpose). This taxonomic work leads to the establishment of typologies of energy communities, in which the spatial dimension is not understood as a bedrock of non-local policies and economic interests, but as an element that operates in the structuring of local communities and their capacity for action. In this context, energy communities are now emerging as models of a renewed spatiality based on energy (Dubois and Kebir, 2021), which takes on different meanings and is part of a tradition of questioning the dominant centralized model. It ranges from the desire for autonomy, which gives rise to citizen projects that claim locality as an instrument of sustainability (Brusadelli, Lemay and Martell, 2016), to the use of the energy community as a tool in the discussion around urban production (Aubert, 2020; Ramirez-Cobo, Tribout and Debizet, 2021). This pooling of actors around energy consumption and production reinterprets not only space as a place to locate energy devices but also locality as a set of values (Herault-Fournier, Merle and Prigent-Simonin, 2012; Martin and Upham, 2016; Perlaviciute et al., 2018), such as the traceability of energy, the exit from large distribution infrastructures or the geographical proximity between producers and consumers (Debizet and Tabourdeau, 2017; Tabourdeau and Debizet, 2017).

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 5 In this sense, energy communities are objects deeply embodied in a local space, or rather in a refection on space that transcends traditional conceptions of energy and its management.

3 Cross-sectional analysis of the chapters The cross-sectional reading of the 14 chapters gives a glimpse of a set of lessons whose scope goes far beyond the case studies and felds described by the various authors. It highlights recurring results in several chapters, the frst stage in their rise to generality. The division into fve sections does not overlap with the two dimensions mentioned in the description of the state of the art, but explores new segmentations without any hierarchy or search for progression in the structuring. The works of the authors encompass a diversity of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and engineering sciences; they cannot be treated from the angle of a unifed subject matter without undervaluing the salient, recurrent results of one each. Subheadings in the form of questions help the readers to focus their reading according to their interests. 3.1 Why and how do members commit to community energy projects? Refections on actors’ motivations are transversal to many chapters of this book. Project participants sometime create an organization in the form of association or cooperative (Proulx and Van Neste; Pappalardo). This confrms the importance of decision-making autonomy, on the scale of a collective dwelling or an urban block, for participants in energy communities. In this sense, while the will to engage in energy sobriety is one of the main motivations for the emergence of the projects presented, the possibility of ‘deciding for oneself’ and even the desire to escape from the monopoly of the large distributors are likewise at the centre of the energy communities studied. According to Maître, the participants in the French Enercoop network see themselves as activists in the energy sector in several ways. As consumers, they commit to paying more for their energy to embark on a path of sobriety; as employees, they accept salaries that are different from those of the market, even sometimes revised downwards, to participate in a network that claims actions and values that are contrary to classic market exploitation. Finally, as bearers, they are part of an entire network built on a participatory system that guarantees the transparency of its governance, from the origin of its resources to its holacratic modes of operation. Proulx and Van Neste analyse how pre-existing collective spaces are the driving force behind the motivation of actors to set up citizen and innovative projects, anchored in the territories of their daily lives. Pappalardo takes a close look at negotiations among the individuals and community, balancing consumption

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practices with community survival. While horizontal governance systems, such as holacracy or sociocracy, can overcome obstacles and reach compromises within offcial bodies, this book also reveals numerous informal dynamics that act on the directions taken by communities in ways that have different degrees of visibility but are equally decisive. The importance of ‘precursor’ actors, as described by Rogers (Rogers, 2003), is emphasized by Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier, who recognize that it is easier for designers to access the visions and expectations of these actors. While actors who initiate or lead energy communities (and in general the integration of innovations) are often the pivotal players (Debizet et al., 2016; Mitchell, Agle and Wood, 1997) in project implementation, they also have to deal with a variety of stakeholders who are not solely interested in the energy dimension. A duality develops between ‘precursor’ and ‘expert’ users, who are easily integrated into the designers’ preparatory studies, and ‘ordinary’ or ‘lay’ actors, who organize their participation in the community around a multitude of factors, of which energy is only one component. This difference not only refers to Moroni et al.’s (Moroni et al., 2019) taxonomy between single-purpose and multi-purpose communities; it also reminds us that, when moving from the individual to the collective, actors come up against a wide range of interests and values, and that compromise does not always lead to the success of the energy project (Ramirez-Cobo, Debizet and Tribout). The tensions that arise in and around communities are reported in several chapters of this book. While some authors focus on tensions within communities that arise at the micro-local level (Pappalardo; Proulx and Van Neste), others examine these tensions at the territorial level and in the institutionalization of projects (Gomez, Tyl and Pottier; Artis, Ballon, Litvine, Dias and Blangy). A place-based approach reveals tensions between actors with divergent interests in the territory encompassing the incipient energy community. The innovative character of energy communities prompts actors to make compromises, creating transformative ripples beyond the space of the energy community or project (Proulx and Van Neste; Artis et al.). However, when the actors’ interests clash with well-established traditions of action in the territory, negotiations may founder and lead to the failure of the envisaged community energy project (Ramirez-Cobo et al.). In such contexts, some decision-support and design tools can enable compromises in multiactor decision-making processes (Morriet, Wurtz and Debizet). The renewed relationship with energy resources also involves the motivations and actions of consumers, who organize their energy use individually and collectively. Maître, for example, analyses how the Enercoop network voluntarily sets a higher price than the market price to encourage energy sobriety among consumers. Meanwhile, other chapters highlight the system and architectural materiality, along with skills, as key resources. In the energy communities studied by Pappalardo, consumption practices are not infuenced solely by participating in an autonomous production system common to the other members of the community but are constructed in a

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 7 differentiated manner in spaces that are shared to varying degrees. Thus, individual practices in the domestic sphere remain largely impervious to collective social control, and even to the ambitions of sobriety that are nevertheless embraced by the community. In their research, Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier emphasize how these practices, with different levels of sobriety, are constructed on the basis of users’ knowledge and capacities to interact with the energy devices themselves. 3.2 How are energy communities local? The energy production and distribution facilities of the energy communities presented in this book are, with a few exceptions, centred around a place or located in a space; in general, the members of the community reside or carry out activities in the vicinity. In other words, in most of the cases discussed, the physical facilities and members of the same energy community are located in the same area. This being said, the question arises as to the spatial proximity and its concomitant effects on the community members. The cross-cutting analysis of the chapters highlights three infuential dynamics: the local as opposed to the dominant regime, the distinct role of the ‘local’ depending on whether the main actor of the energy project is local or not, and local anchoring as a driving force for scaling up. 3.2.1 The local as a counter-model to the dominant electricity regime Most of the authors of this book see local energy communities as part of a movement of emancipation from the state and the large energy suppliers (Martin et al.). Electricity is particularly associated with images of a centralized network that leaves little room for citizens and of energy producers, including renewable energy producers, led by multinational companies with purely proft-making motives (Artis et al.). In contrast, the local is adorned with virtues: renewing links with the natural environment that surrounds the habitat (Martin et al.), interdependence with neighbours based on the sharing of equipment (Proulx et al.), giving back ‘power to the people’ (Schönbeck, Gorbatcheva and Schneiders). While globalization in general and the liberalization of energy in Europe have extended the distances between the consumer and the production chain while reinforcing the free choice of supplier, energy community actors tend to enthusiastically cultivate a dependence on the local: its physical resources, its human resources, its scenes of deliberation, to name but a few. For example, the citizen production cooperatives federated by the French national network Energie Partagée are explicitly committed to involving ‘local stakeholders and resources’ and to management and governance by local residents (Artis et al.). This enthusiasm for local energy communities can also be found at the other extreme of the scale; the European Union’s commission and parliament positively perceive energy communities as a

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way to increase the acceptability of renewable energies (Lormeteau). The emerging scientifc focus on energy justice (Sovacool et al., 2017) perceives the local as a space where resilience can be organized to reduce the vulnerability created by the global system’s removal from populations and territories of the control of energy sources necessary for their development. Some authors temper this enthusiastic vision of the local. Pappalardo highlights the tensions between privacy and the setting of rules for sharing, in this case access to renewable electricity, in a participatory habitat. Fonteneau points to the controversy over the fnancing of the electricity grid as an instrument of national solidarity. Ramirez-Cobo et al. show the tensions between local scales, such as building, neighbourhood and city, that have arisen in the context of urban projects. In other words, while, according to some economists, sociologists, psychologists and jurists, the local level is a paragon of virtue, geographers, urban planners and other sociologists are more circumspect, calling for a deeper exploration of what local actually means. 3.2.2 Community energy as an outcome of the local level In the introduction to a recent special issue of the francophone journal Flux, devoted to local energy communities, Debizet and Pappalardo (2021) highlighted two lines of Francophone research on energy. Focusing on the electricity sector, one line presents the local level as a test to which renewable energy projects are subjected, and calls for an adaptation of the energy project (Dobigny, 2012; Nadaï et al., 2015). The other, taking the angle of urban production or territorial development, considers energy as a new feld of action for citizens and local authorities. Local actors thus carry out projects and go through the ordeals imposed by the socio-technical energy regime (Debizet et al., 2016), as outlined in the Geels’ chapter of the book Cities and Low Carbon Transitions (Bulkeley et al., 2010). While they have seized upon the liberalization of the electricity market and the economic incentives for renewable energy in most countries, production cooperatives systematically involve local authorities well upstream of the implementation of production facilities. Partnership with these is part and parcel of the principles of action for these cooperatives (Gomez et al.). It is always preferable to involve local authorities upstream as sooner or later they will have to grant some approval or authorize the installation. However, it is also a question of (re-)politicizing energy production choices, while accelerating the reappropriation of the energy issue and the development of local energy resources (Artis et al.). Citizens’ cooperatives clearly contribute to the acceptability of renewable energy hoped for by the European Union, as do collective self-consumption operations (Lormeteau). Generally initiated and carried out by established, legitimate local actors, these operations extend their scope beyond their usual socio-economic felds. Such local actors extend their scope to energy: local authorities share the surplus with local consumers, social housing

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 9 bodies give their residents access to affordable green electricity and urban real estate companies empower occupants with a micro-grid perspective (Fonteneau). The motivations of these actors are not limited to citizen appropriation of energy; they include the energy object in the essential mission or service of their organization. 3.2.3 Territorial anchorage and combinations of spatial and organizational proximities as levers for scaling-up energy communities From the national level, the local level is seen as a challenge to overcome. At this overarching level, the effectiveness of support for renewable energy is a highly controversial issue (Fonteneau). Citizen projects and collective self-consumption initiatives do not beneft from economies of scale compared to large wind and solar farms. Subsidies or tax cuts would be required for projects to approach the economic viability necessary for their emergence. The local dynamics contributing to the establishment of community energy are little perceived by the actors in the energy sector. The combination of spatial proximity (in projects and operations) and organizational proximity (in transcalar networks) contributes to accelerating the capitalization and dissemination of knowledge and know-how. The participatory or even holacratic decision-making process (Maître), along with the principle of co-construction with partners (Gomez et al.), multiples the learning of know-how for setting up and implementing installations within citizen cooperatives and among their partners (craftsmen, service providers, local authorities, etc.) (Artis et al.). The grouping of local production cooperatives within a national federation allows for access to specialized expertise, also enabling know-how to be leveraged and disseminated between local cooperatives (Artis et al.) and, ultimately, from one territory to others. The reinvestment of the revenue from the sale of electricity by citizen cooperatives in new local renewable facilities reduces the capital proftability but fnances the establishment of more facilities. Collective self-consumption could also beneft from the effects of learning and dissemination within the structures that support them, such as groups of municipalities, social housing organizations and their umbrella regional and national networks (Fonteneau). Thus, economies of scale are not intrinsic only to the scale of the project or its carrying organization but could be linked to the ability of a network of organizations to leverage and share knowledge and to pool purchases. 3.2.4 The diversity of scales of sharing and the ensuing tensions In the chapter by Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier, the domestic space is the place where innovative forms of energy consumption are tested on an individual scale and possibly with the collaboration of several households.

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These ‘precursor’ households experiment with different consumption solutions (or even individual production solutions) in their daily lives, enabling them to achieve effciency and sobriety objectives. The transition to the collective dimension complicates these dynamics. Individuals can no longer take into account only their own expectations and practices but must deal with the other members of the energy community, as in the case studies presented by Pappalardo. Thus, the nature of the inhabited spaces becomes signifcant in the exercise of certain social control and hence in the establishment of energy sharing rules. This transition requires adjustments, even compromises, necessary for the survival of the community. The results of Pappalardo’s research show how these rules, adjusted and interwoven in the inhabited space, are based on spaces, whether physical or of expertise, that pre-date the very decision to set up an energy community project. Indeed, participatory housing and spaces governed by the commons model as a whole are confrmed as spaces that are conducive to the emergence of policies in practice. In Proulx and Van Neste’s chapter, these spaces are those of the neighbourhood, of inter-personal relationships on the neighbourhood scale, in this case the back alley. The physical spatial dimension (existing or projected) is more central to the research of Ramirez-Cobo, Tribout and Debizet, where it serves as a basis for all the exchanges related to the emergence of the energy project. In the end, the usual governance scales, such as the building and the city, were chosen as the space for pooling renewable energy production facilities, to the detriment of the urban project scale, the neighbourhood. The local level thus covers a wide variety of scales, from private dwelling to the whole urban area, and institutional confgurations. These scales compete with each other, not only when it comes to pooling facilities but also when capitalizing on knowledge and know-how to make it available to other energy communities. 3.3 Why so many different types of energy communities? In total, fve types of energy communities are addressed in this book: – residents’ cooperatives sharing production facilities (Proulx, Van Neste; Pappalardo) – collective self-consumption operations (Lormeteau; Fonteneau; Morriet et al.) – citizens’ production cooperatives (Gomez et al.; Artis et al.) – consumer cooperatives (Maître) – digital peer-to-peer services (Cortade and Poudou; Dede and Heyder et al.; Schönbeck et al.) We have not added to this list the aborted projects of local production systems for the recovery of waste heat (Fito, Hodencq, Morriet, Ramousse, Wurtz and Debizet) or those initiated in the framework of urban projects (Ramirez-Cobo et al.).

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 11 These types result from a dialectic between citizen/local mobilizations and national energy frameworks. The majority of authors have highlighted the dynamics of community mobilization, in particular, individual motivations (Martin et al.; Gomez et al.; Morriet et al.); the spatialized construction of communities (Proulx et al.); and decision rules (Maître; Pappalardo), which are also spatially entangled. Others have emphasized the construction of generally national frameworks associated with the electricity distribution system (Lormeteau; Fonteneau; Dede et al.) and the related market mechanism (Cortade et al.). These frameworks outline three modes of relationship to the market. First, there is the direct action on the market and, second, the withdrawal of fows from the market, as observed by Debizet and Pappalardo (2021) for energy communities in France. The third mode is that of the local marketplaces in Columbia, Germany, India and the Netherlands (Dede et al. and Schönbeck et al.). 1 Direct action in the electricity market has been adopted by citizen cooperatives of producers and consumers. Acting on the national or even European electricity market, citizens’ cooperatives are subject to competition from capital-intensive producers and suppliers, including of renewable energy. More than prices, the competitive advantage of these cooperatives lies in the values they embody: mainly green and local energy, along with co-construction with local partners. 2 Implemented in Germany, Spain and France (Lormeteau), the collective self-consumption scheme removes fows from the national electricity market. The collective self-consumption operation allocates local production to the members of the community and thus reduces their supply from a national supplier. Collective self-consumption brings additional economic and symbolic benefts to community members, tenants of social landlords or occupants of owner-occupied buildings (Fonteneau), who are not reduced to the sole role of consumers from electricity suppliers. 3 Digital peer-to-peer solutions in Germany (Dede et al.), the Netherlands and the UK (Schönbeck et al.) establish digital marketplaces and, often on a local scale, reproduce the fundamentals of the market: multiplicity of suppliers and demanders, freedom of matching and adjustment by price. The company that programs the algorithm organizes the transactions between the subscribers of the service and probably leaves little room for debate within the community. These three relationships to the market are considered as alternatives to the national and European electricity market, the very dominant convention of the electricity system. Beyond the common energy and low-carbon objective, each mode guides the construction of the energy community. (1) The major aim of citizens’ cooperatives is to increase the number of members and projects. (2) Those who run collective self-consumption operations aspire to provide an additional service or beneft to nearby households or

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small companies. (3) For companies running digital platforms, the goal is to create economic value. We also note various forms of energy sharing outside the energy market in cooperative housing (Proulx et al.; Pappalardo). 3.4 What questions do energy communities pose to energy democracy? Many trade-offs and open questions need to be addressed by energy system designers. Most of these relate to the governance of energy communities, which is itself shaped by existing infrastructure and regulations on the relationship of customers to the public grid and their electricity supplier. As these regulations can quickly change and the infrastructure can gradually be altered, it is important to identify the issues raised by the growth of energy communities in terms of energy democracy. The way in which citizens are reclaiming control over the energy resource is a common thread throughout the chapters in this book. Many of the authors highlight how the civic nature of the initiatives reshapes roles traditionally assigned to producers and consumers. The democratic investment of members in energy communities takes place with less latitude: from being a simple consumer taking part, or not, in a local marketplace (Schönbeck et al.; Dede et al.) to actively participating in a cooperative using facilities in one’s living area (Gomez et al.). This democratic involvement happens in scenes of varying levels of formality: from the decision by consent of citizen cooperatives (Maître) to the implicit and informal adjustments observed in collective housing (Pappalardo). The different research projects nevertheless have several points in common: (1) A political reshaping is observed, in which the citizen becomes a protagonist and carries values detached from economic interests. (2) The citizen acts in their living space, even if on different scales. (3) A democratic ambition is evident and leads to rethinking the energy transition, and even the ecological transition, on new bases. (4) New forms of governance spawn new perceptions of access to energy resources, not as a public service but as a common good. Horizontal governance structures how communities sharing common resources contribute to the dynamics of mutual acculturation by making available a range of expertise (Proulx et al.; Pappalardo). They do this within spaces where community action already exists (e.g., participatory housing) or is organized, according to the citizens’ cooperative, following a binary distribution of roles: member/community. This is only apparent because other roles (e.g., roof rental, contribution of expertise) are played by members of the cooperative (Proulx et al.; Gomez et al.) or may be wholly or partly provided by partners, as in the case of citizenpublic-private projects (Artis et al.), heat recovery (Fito et al.) and collective

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 13 self-consumption (Morriet et al.). The diversity of roles is essential to the implementation of actions but complicates the governance of the commons and the exercise of democracy.

4 Outlook The implementation of institutional and political forms leading to a renewed ‘energy democracy’ (Szulecki and Overland, 2020) appears in various forms in the different case studies in this book. However, while a certain desire for autonomy, or even for reappropriation of control over the resource, is common to several initiatives, the declared desire to act politically is not necessarily made explicit by the actors in these projects. While for some the establishment of an energy democracy is one of the main objectives, for others it is rather the process of institutionalization that makes these experiments democratic laboratories through energy. The desire for autonomy, although most often achieved through participation in a collective experiment, is primarily individual. However, motivations and governance are entangled in deliberative and everyday practices, in the values held by actors and designers. This leads to a confictive differentiation between individual and collective dimensions, and the recognition that, in energy communities, it is not only the juxtaposition of individual interests that is at stake but a transformative interplay of the practices and values of each of the members. The cross-sectional analysis has highlighted the trajectories of different types of energy communities: through a dialectic between bottom-up and top-down dynamics, between community, local and national scales. Relationships with the market are both complementary and competing and give rise to specifc governance systems (see section 2.3). Conversely, each type of pre-existing organization and subsequent energy community adopts a specifc relationship to the energy market, based on its raison d’être and sometimes its governance and values. In sum, each type of energy community can be seen as a different and often competing type of niche, in the sense of Geels (2002), for the implementation of renewable energy. Hence, there is a competition, on the one hand, among different types of communities in settled areas and, on the other, with large companies involved in large-scale renewable energy facilities. Thus, the encouragement of energy communities by EU directives opens up dynamics in rather different and uncertain directions. Is it a matter of making large renewable energy parks acceptable through individual and community acceptance of these technologies? Or are such communities’ alternatives to the dominant electricity market, including the future one, which will be powered mainly by renewable energies? Relative connected energy autonomies, as described by Lopez, Pelegrino and Coutard (2019), are emerging and could take on an increasing but variable role, depending on the country and territory. It is likely that the major

14 Gilles Debizet and Marta Pappalardo networks, in particular the one that best serves the areas – namely the electricity network – will persist and play an essential role in the energy transition. Societal and scientifc challenges concern both the margins of this network and the distribution of its internal governance; the organization of transactions between production and consumption is a question that must remain open and publicly debated. Finally, this book on local energy communities forces us to think of a differentiation of societal challenges according to countries and territories, including in Europe. In this period of abundant initiatives characteristic of societal transitions, it also calls for the production and circulation of new knowledge on the socio-technical dynamics linking communities, energy systems and society and their wider environment.

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Academy of Management Review, 22 (4), 853–886. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr. 1997.9711022105. Moroni, S. et al. (2019). Energy communities in the transition to a low-carbon future: A taxonomical approach and some policy dilemmas. Journal of Environmental Management, 236, 45–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.01.095. Nadaï, A. et al. (2015). French policy localism: Surfng on ‘Positive Energie Territories’ (Tepos). Energy Policy, 78, 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.12.005. Pappalardo, M. (2021). La gouvernance des communautés énergétiques, entre pratiques de l’espace et dynamiques de pouvoir. Espaces et sociétés, n° 182 (1), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.3917/esp.182.0055. Pappalardo, M. and Debizet, G. (2020). Understanding the governance of innovative energy sharing in multi-dwelling buildings through a spatial analysis of consumption practices. Global Transitions, 2, 221–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. glt.2020.09.001. Perlaviciute, G. et al. (2018). Emotional responses to energy projects: Insights for responsible decision making in a sustainable energy transition. Sustainability, 10 (7), 2526. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072526. Radtke, J. and Henning, B. (2013). Die deutsche ‘Energiewende’ nach Fukushima: der wissenschaftliche Diskurs zwischen Atomausstieg und Wachstumsdebatte. Weimar: Metropolis. Ramirez-Cobo, I., Tribout, S. and Debizet, G. (2021). Territoires d’énergie, territoires à projet. Articulations et dépendances entre conceptions urbaine et énergétique. Espaces et sociétés, n° 182 (1), 73–91. https://doi.org/10.3917/esp.182.0073. Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations, 5th ed. New York: Free Press. Rumpala, Y. (2013). Formes alternatives de production énergétique et reconfgurations politiques. La sociologie des énergies alternatives comme étude des potentialités de réorganisation du collectif. Flux, N° 92 (2), 47–61. https://doi.org/10.3917/ fux.092.0047. Seyfang, G. and Haxeltine, A. (2012). Growing grassroots innovations: Exploring the role of community-based initiatives in governing sustainable energy transitions. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 30 (3), 381–400. https://doi.org/10.1068/c10222. Souami, T. (2009). Ecoquartiers secrets de fabrication, analyse critique d’exemples -. Carnets de l’info. http://livre.fnac.com/a2639526/Safer-Taoufk-Ecoquartierssecrets-de-fabrication-analyse-critique-d-exemples [Accessed 24 July 2013]. Sovacool, B.K. et al. (2017). New frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice. Energy Policy, 105, 677–691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.005. Szulecki, K. and Overland, I. (2020). Energy democracy as a process, an outcome and a goal: A conceptual review. Energy Research & Social Science, 69, 101768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101768. Tabourdeau, A. and Debizet, G. (2017). Concilier ressources in situ et grands réseaux: une lecture des proximités par la notion de nœud socio-énergétique. Flux, 109–110 (3–4), 87–101. https://doi.org/10.3917/fux1.109.0087. van der Waal, E., van der Windt, H. and van Oost, E. (2018). How local energy initiatives develop technological innovations: Growing an actor network. Sustainability, 10 (12), 4577. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124577. Walker, G. and Devine-Wright, P. (2008). Community renewable energy: What should it mean? Energy Policy, 36 (2), 497–500. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2007.10.019.

Local energy communities: social sciences introduction 17 Wirth, S. (2014). Communities matter: Institutional preconditions for community renewable energy. Energy Policy, 70, 236–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. enpol.2014.03.021. Wokuri, P. (2019). Participation citoyenne et régimes de politiques publiques: nouvelle donne ou donne inchangée?: Le cas des projets coopératifs d’énergie renouvelable au Danemark et en France. Lien social et Politiques, (82), 158–180. https:// doi.org/10.7202/1061881ar. Wokuri, P. (2021). Community energy in the United Kingdom: Beyond or between the market and the state? Revue française de civilisation britannique, XXVI (2). https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.7976 [Accessed 21 February 2022]. Yalçın-Riollet, M., Garabuau-Moussaoui, I. and Szuba, M. (2014). Energy autonomy in Le Mené: A French case of grassroots innovation. Energy Policy, 69, 347– 355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.02.016.

Engineering sciences introduction. Local energy communities Transversal reading Frédéric Wurtz

1 Energy communities: a vision from engineering sciences In the feld of engineering sciences and technology, the notion of energy community has emerged and is structured by proposals of technical and technological solutions coming from digital and energy sciences and engineering. The comparative work of Brummer (2018) points out that many authors defne energy communities according to the subject of their research. Thus, while several authors focus on social aspects, such as the participation of civil society or the organization of actors, others defne energy communities in terms of technological aspects, such as renewable energy production or decentralized installations (Acosta et al., 2018). The entries and keywords refer to sciences and engineering: blockchain, modelling and optimization tools in the design phase, digital platform for supervision and coordination “in situ”, among others. For energy engineering, the key entry and word to approach the vision of the feld is “smart grid”, itself based on concepts and entries such as “smart-building”, “information internet” and “internet of things” (Wurtz and Delinchant, 2017). This “smart grid” paradigm claims to provide a signifcant response to the challenge of the energy transition through the development of renewable and intermittent energies, thanks to a network in which energy fows can be multidirectional and even come from the consumer, individually or grouped in energy communities. The latter will be able to inject renewable energy, typically from solar panels they may have. The challenge of the smart grid, which is perceived frst and foremost as scientifc and technological, is to ensure a strict balance between production and consumption at all times. If this balance is not maintained, the physical network is no longer able to function, which can lead to a blackout: a generalized shutdown of the network that can spread, through a domino effect, to a whole country or even continent. To meet this scientifc and technological challenge, smart grids make mass use of information and communication technologies, potentially converging toward a concept of the “internet of energy” (Rifkin, 2002), in its most developed or extreme form. To achieve this, smart grids will have to be intelligently designed and integrated into

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-2

Local energy communities: engineering sciences introduction 19 the territory. They will have to irrigate this with energy, without oversizing or undersizing, while taking advantage of the renewable energy sources that can be exploited there. Smart grids will also have to mobilize consumers, potentially grouped into energy communities, to encourage them to adapt their consumption by being aware of the renewable energy fows produced. In this framework, and thus from a technical and engineering point of view, energy communities are seen, and in a way defned, as targets. They are seen in terms of users, uses of technical solutions (components for production, storage, effcient consumption, all integrated into micro-grids, digital tools and design, modelling and optimization software), and at last as consumers of solutions in possible future industrial markets. Nevertheless, the idea is that, while the production and consumption of energy is an activity that requires technical expertise and technology, its full understanding, mutation and transition cannot be approached from a purely technical angle, but requires a “human in the loop” approach (Wurtz and Delinchant, 2017), right from the design through to the operational phases. Technical and engineering considerations must therefore be coordinated with social science approaches, from observation in living labs (Fam et al., 2020) and real sites, to the proposal of model solutions incorporating the results of such observations (Wurtz and Delinchant, ibid).

2 A transversal reading of the chapters This section, starting from the issues of energy transition, proposes an analysis by examining tools, techniques and debates in the feld of science and technology, and around which the energy communities gravitate as contributing actors or users. It is intended to be an entry point and a transversal analysis for readers wishing to address the contributions of this book to energy communities from an engineering angle (between transition engineering, energy engineering and digital engineering). However, this engineering dimension is per se interrelated, in this systemic book, with social issues, such as behaviour, practice, regulation and economy. The transversal analysis is therefore proposed as a way of questioning the concept of energy communities as an actor or a mobilizer of resources, and belongs to an approach that we have called “socio-technical engineering”. This concept of “socio-technical engineering” can raise questions at all scales, from the global energy transition and the functioning of the global energy system, down to the scale of the internal socio-technical functioning of energy communities, which is the main focus of this work. 2.1 Decarbonization, sobriety, fexibility: the challenges of sociotechnical engineering The chapters of this book shed light on the “socio-engineering” contribution that can be made by energy communities to the energy transition issues

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of decarbonization, fexibility and sobriety, which themselves offer a matrix of analyses and objectives at the interface of technical possibilities, physical constraints and social dimensions. 2.1.1 Decarbonization through electrifcation and the development of heating networks Concerning decarbonization, the societal, geopolitical and environmental concern is to move from stock energies to fow energies. As Schönbeck reminds us: “Fossil energy is scarce and can therefore be appropriated: something that everyone needs, but which is owned by a few, automatically leads to confict …” whereas “… sustainable decentralised energy is abundant, has no owner and is available to everyone”. This decarbonization seems to require mass electrifcation via renewable energies. It is therefore no coincidence that many chapters of the book testify to the dynamics of energy communities structured around decarbonized electrifcation. Electricity consumption and local and decarbonized electricity production are at the heart of three of the four chapters in Section A, as well as being central to the concerns of the energy communities in Section B, which have structured themselves within the framework of collective self-consumption. Renewable electricity is also a central topic of the citizen energy communities and cooperatives in Section C, with major actors and electricity suppliers such as the French cooperative Enercoop. Section D explores in depth the issue of sharing renewable electrical energy between markets, and local “peer-to-peer” exchanges via digital platforms in the framework of “smart grids” or the “internet of energy”. Electricity is also at the heart of the design and supervision support tools mentioned in Section E, with each of the two chapters being also linked to the heat vector. Indeed, while the electric vector is still unavoidable, these last two chapters show that decarbonization also requires the development of solutions and local networks for heat production, storage and distribution. This subject was already raised in the chapter by Proulx and van Neste. As mentioned by the authors, the local community wished to invest in a local thermal network powered by geothermal energy, despite the energy of the Canadian territory concerned being already largely hydraulic and therefore decarbonized. Returning to the last two chapters, Morriet, Wurtz and Debizet mention the production of domestic hot water going through a share of a photovoltaic production, whose energy can feed the hot water tanks of the members of the community. In the chapter by Fito, Hodencq, Morriet, Ramousse, Wurtz and Debizet, heat networks allow for the valorization of the waste energies of an electro-intensive site which are dedicated to being distributed and consumed at the district scale via the public heating network. It should be noted that, in the different roadmaps drawn up by agencies or NGOs, decarbonization appears obliged to go through the gas vector, with inter-seasonal storage solutions in the power-to-gas type systems required

Local energy communities: engineering sciences introduction 21 for the hydrogen vector and methanization. This matter is not covered in this book, being a horizon not yet addressed by energy communities studied in this book. 2.1.2 The treatment of fexibility, effcacy and sobriety issues The works in this book testify to, or call for, the collective mobilization of local actors with technical skills, confguring new actors such as prosumers and citizens. Schönbeck et al. stress that “We see wording like ‘consumercentred’ and ‘putting consumers at the heart of the energy market’ to avoid rising costs of backup generation and allow consumers to beneft from participation in the market”. Similarly Proulx and van Neste analyse how pre-existing collective spaces motivate actors to set up citizen and innovative projects, while Pappalardo provides a close-up on negotiations among actors, at the individual and collective level, balancing consumption practices and community sustainability. The socio-technical vision continues to appear in the following sections of the book, showing how a synergy between actors’ behaviour and practices, physical constraints and the deployment of technical solutions can address sobriety and effciency. Thus energy communities are allowed to be actors in a game that we refer to as the “socio-engineering” of energy. Concerning sobriety, the creation of institutionalized structures in the form of associations or cooperatives by project participants, as we can see in the chapters of Proulx and van Neste, and Pappalardo, confrms the importance of decision-making autonomy. This refects the desire to get out of the monopoly of the big distributors, of centralized functioning, to have the possibility of “deciding for oneself” and being able to commit, in a concrete, operational way, to an energy sobriety approach. Maître analyses how the Enercoop network has voluntarily set a higher tariff than the market one to push consumers towards greater sobriety. In their research, Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier underline how practices, with different degrees of sobriety, are built on the basis of users’ knowledge and capacities to interact with the energy devices themselves. Concerning fexibility, this issue is extensively addressed in the chapters of Section D, showing how digital platforms now offer a digital value to match local energy production and consumption fows in energy communities, in synergy with local or global markets. Moreover, by contributing to the decentralized and fexible balancing of renewable energy production and consumption fows, energy communities can also address the problem of the stability and physical balancing of grid operations. This is a point on which Schönbeck et al., for example, insists. They highlight the outlook of the internet of energy and transactive energy, operated by energy communities, as a way to address the physical balancing constraint, again using the possibilities and value of digital coordination platforms. This outlines a holarchical type of organization, offering new forms and perspectives of resilience and stability. In other words,

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based on an internet of energy mediating exchanges between communities, the vision takes shape of a socio-technical network, composed of interconnected cells, each one vigilant at its own level of equilibrium and stability. 2.2 What kind of technical and digital tools and platforms for EC operations and design? The question of tools appears in Martin’s chapter in Section A, proposing the activities and needs of inhabitants as a starting point for the design of tools for energy communities. It also points to the need for tools to analyse and understand users’ needs and motivations, in this case using an interview method to visualize current and future consumption in habitats occupied by the members of energy communities. 2.2.1 Tools for which actors in energy communities? Martin et al. identify the actors who initiate or carry energy communities and the integration of innovations in general. They are often key actors, or pivotal actors, as proposed by Debizet et al. (2016), in the implementation of projects, who must then deal with a variety of stakeholders that are not only interested in the energy dimension. This work thus identifes a duality of actors within energy communities, from “precursor” or “expert” users, who easily get involved in the designers’ preparatory studies, to “ordinary” or “lay” actors, who participate in the community around a multitude of factors, of which energy is only one component. The two chapters of Section E, starting with the design support tools, clearly identify the actors involved in the design and supervision of energy communities and associated energy systems. Morriet et al. propose a method which starts from the corpus of social analysis made in the feld (typically surveys and monographs). Using a lexicographic analysis method, this identifes the actors and the infuencing variables of the energy project, feeding a socio-energetic modelling approach. This approach in turn feeds into a quantitative optimization modelling tool, allowing socio-technical confgurations to be modelled and discussion to take place on the constraints and objectives at the interface of the physical energy operations, as well as the behaviour, objectives and constraints of the actors. The exercise reveals the diversity of actors infuencing the technical project of the energy community, including consumers, prosumers, the public electricity distribution network operator, electricity suppliers, or regulatory actors. Fito et al. focus on proposing tools and a methodology to fnd compromises in expectations and objectives among several actors. This can be applied to the valorization of waste heat at district level and can go so far as to integrate sophisticated, innovative concepts of physics (at the scale of multi-actor energy projects), such as the minimization of exergy destruction. It can equally be applied to more classical objectives related to minimizing energy consumption or energy costs.

Local energy communities: engineering sciences introduction 23 2.2.2 Why is there a need for management support tools from the design to supervision phases for “socio-engineering” in energy communities? 2.2.2.1 FOR THE DESIGN PHASE: TO FACILITATE MULTI-ACTOR NEGOTIATION/ PROJECTION AND ANTICIPATE THE CONSTRAINTS OF NECESSARILY FLEXIBLE SUPERVISION

Several chapters of the book show the complexity of projects at the scale of energy communities. On the one hand, these projects are de facto multi-actor ones, involving a number of local actors, along with more distant ones, such as the regulator. These considerations are a reminder that, when moving from the individual to the collective, actors come up against a wide range of interests and values, and that compromise does not always lead to the success of the energy project (Ramirez-Cobo, Debizet and Tribout). The decision support tools of Section E, addressing the design phases, allow for the prospect of negotiation, maturation and projection as early as possible between the project actors. This offers hope for a greater capacity of negotiation, projection and compromise with a consideration of physical operating constraints, following the example of Fito et al. or even assistance in the relaxation of incompatible constraints, as proposed by Morriet et al. The proposed tools are based on systems deployed on operating cycles that can be variable (from the day to the year), thus allowing for anticipation and taking into account the constraints of managing intermittent energy. They also highlight the need, as early as the design phase, to assess the fexibility potential between actors, the system and technical constraints. 2.2.2.2 FOR THE OPERATION AND SUPERVISION PHASES: MANAGING FLEXIBILITY

These phases are intended to be instrumented by the digital platforms proposed and analysed in Section D. These chapters focus on how diversifcation can take place in renewable energies, along with the decentralization of the electricity market with digital technology as a driver, to give rise to peer-to-peer energy exchange within energy communities in the operational and supervision phases. Dede and Heyder raise the question of digital value and its intersection with citizen engagement criteria. Schönbeck et al. clearly explore the internet of energy with blockchain-type approaches at the interface of possible market structuring. Cortade and Poudou start from modelling and economic analysis. The emergence of trading and peer-topeer platforms, necessary for the operation phases, is studied to ascertain to what extent they can encourage investment in solar installations with a view to a “peer-to-peer” approach. The author concludes that digital platforms are an incentive, except in the case of autarky.

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3 Perspectives: energy communities as levers of energy transition – opportunities and risks Faced with the challenges of climate change, one of the issues at stake in this book is levering the potential of energy communities for the energy transition. In this respect, it is worth remembering the energy and decarbonization potential that could be addressed by energy communities. The buildings occupied by these energy communities, for example, are among the largest consumers of energy in general, and of electrical energy in particular (65% of electrical energy in France) (Wurtz and Delinchant, 2017). Moreover, it should not be overlooked that these same buildings have the potential to become one of the main producers of renewable energy on the smart grid of the future. Generally speaking, energy communities allow for: •

•

•

The installation of renewable energy production facilities as close as possible to their place of consumption, which is desirable not only to reduce energy transmission losses but also to potentially limit the size of transmission capacity networks. Mutualization on the scale of the district and the territory, which likewise seems desirable. Indeed, if the concept of positive energy buildings is to develop, as well as self-consumption, this clearly cannot be achieved only on an individual or habitat basis, simply because each habitat will not have the exploitable potential in terms of roofng. It follows that taking advantage of large available roofs and deploying installations that produce for a group of buildings in the vicinity are attractive options for the smart grid of the future. The fostering of “prosumers”, so that these are active and invest in the implementation of photovoltaic means of production.

This makes energy communities a key socio-energy node that could be decisive in the face of the challenges of decarbonization, effciency, sobriety and fexibility, as shown in this book. The whole volume sketches the vision, beyond the concept of a “smart grid”, of an energy internet, in which energy communities will be a “provider” of opportunities. It should, however, be born in mind that: • • •

We are not at the stage of exchanging kWh as easily as emails. There are still many obstacles to overcome in terms of technical solutions, social involvement and organization, business model and regulation. This vision of the internet of energy may only be an ideal fnal result, a feeting horizon that may not be fully achieved. It does, nonetheless, offer a framework for analysing the current movement of energy communities and identifying the potential, opportunities

Local energy communities: engineering sciences introduction 25 and risks at the interface of technical and social dimensions. It thus allows us to identify key questions that energy communities will have to ask themselves. These include how to regain control of energy consumption/production at the possible cost of a critical dependence on dominant digital solutions and actors. Another question is how to strike a balance between making data available for the common good and effcient, sober and sustainable energy management, while preserving confdentiality and respect for privacy. This last point is as much a technical challenge as a democratic one.

References Acosta C., Ortega M., Bunsen T., Prasad Koirala B. and Ghorbani A. (2018) Facilitating energy transition through energy commons: An application of socio-ecological systems framework for integrated community energy system, Sustainability, 10 (366). doi:10.3390/su10020366 Brummer V. (2018) Community energy – benefts and barriers: A comparative literature review of Community Energy in the UK, Germany and the USA, the benefts it provides for society and the barriers it faces, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 94, 187–196, ISSN 1364–0321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.06.013 Debizet, G. et al. (2016). Spatial processes in urban energy transitions: Considering an assemblage of Socio-Energetic Nodes. Journal of Cleaner Production, 134, Part A, 330–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.140. Fam D., Lopes A.M., Ross K. and Crosby A. (2020) The Transdisciplinary Living Lab Model (TDLL). In: Leal Filho W. et al. (eds) Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15604-6_11 Rifkin J. (2002) The Hydrogen Economy. The Creation of the World-Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on EARTH. New York, J.P. Tarcher/Putnam. Wurtz F. and Delinchant B. (2017) “Smart buildings” integrated in “smart grids”: A key challenge for the energy transition by using physical models and optimization with a “human-in-the-loop” approach, Comptes Rendus Physique, 18 (7–8), 428–444, ISSN 1631–0705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crhy.2017.09.007

Section A: Introduction

Motivations and internal/ local dynamics of energy sharing communities The four chapters of this section analyse the motivations behind and the establishment of an energy community, as well as the dynamics in the operational phase which characterize the formal and informal governance between members. These members can be inhabitants of a collective housing or a neighbourhood, as well as entities involved in an urban project. Thus, these analyses focus on the way in which the actors make communities emerge and then function, from within. As mentioned in the introduction to this book, energy communities are a polymorphic and changing object, which adapts to external factors, including material and economic possibilities, regulatory provisions and partner actors, among others. The chapters in this section deal in particular with an issue common to all the experiences: the way in which the prior motivations of the initiating members (Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier) are constructed and arranged to make the community project emerge. The result is an analysis of the stages and spatial scales of this transformation: from the individual to the collective dimension; from the household to the neighbourhood – and even urban – project; and from self decision making to shared governance. The chapters highlight the trials and tribulations, the negotiations and the power of some actors over others. This power is not necessarily on the side of the more “expert” actors or those with economic or political capital. In the creation and subsequent governance of the community, power is built on the direct and shifting experience acquired by actors in relation to the energy devices and other members of the community. The authors show how such new types of expertise are built around pre-existing collective action (Martin et al.; Proulx and Van Neste), non-energyrelated subjects (Ramirez-Cobo, Debizet and Tribout) or the daily practices of the inhabited space (Pappalardo). The dynamic governance resulting from the encounter between these profles sets up opposing powers, scenes of negotiation and a hierarchy of interests where energy effciency does not necessarily come frst.

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28  Section A Introduction: Motivation and internal dynamics

Chapter A1. Inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to renewable energy pooling and sharing: A prospective scenario approach, by Antoine Martin, Marie-France Agnoletti and Eric Brangier The chapter by Martin, Agnoletti and Brangier sheds light on the motivations that drive people to engage in energy sobriety or renewable energy production/sharing projects. Whatever the project, the consumer is a key player because they have control over their consumption, therefore, over the use of renewable energy and, consequently, over the deployment of installations. The action of consuming is therefore at the heart of reflections in energy communities. This chapter underlines the need to take consumption practices into account when designing innovative energy systems. The first section lays the theoretical foundations of consumer needs and expectations. The recognition of a hypothetical representation of users, constructed by designers, leads the authors to emphasize the importance of qualifying users’ needs. They distinguish two categories of needs: pragmatic and hedonic. The former are linked to the knowledge and abilities developed by the user in dealing with the artefact, leading to a satisfactory and efficient use. Hedonic needs refer to the psychological well-being that the artefact is able to guarantee its user. These two needs motivate users to take possession of technical objects and require designers to give them careful consideration, upstream of the design process. In the second part of the chapter, the authors draw up a typology of consumer profiles and their involvement in energy projects, as well as scenarios for the use of energy artefacts. Among the different profiles, organized according to the consumers’ relationship with energy and its consumption, is that of the “household member of an energy community”. These members are individuals attentive to the values of energy sobriety but who wish to engage in collective dynamics to reduce the costs of installing innovative energy systems. This leads to the establishment of rules for sharing selfproduced energy and the functioning of the community. Thus, the energy community model, while not the only one among the sobriety scenarios advocated by the authors, is part of an active reflection by consumers, as demonstrated by the recent initiatives of in-situ production and consumption energy communities.

Chapter A2. Shared geothermal energy projects in Montreal: The importance of pre-existing collective action spaces, by Myriam Proulx and Sophie Van Neste Proulx and Van Neste’s chapter confirms this craze for the implementation of collective dynamics, notably, by citizens who wish to combine sobriety and energy autonomy, and who investigate the scale of action of the collective housing and the street neighbourhood. The chapter analyses two shared

Section A Introduction: Motivation and internal dynamics  29 geothermal projects in Montreal. While Canada does not favour the establishment of autonomous renewable energy projects due to the dominance of fully decarbonized hydroelectricity, this research shows how pre-existing structures and spaces for collective action and individual expertise can lead to the emergence of energy communities. Two empirical cases are studied: the Celsius project and the Coteau Vert. Celsius was set in motion by two residents of the Rosemont – La PetitePatrie borough, who already participated in the Green Alleyway initiative, encouraging neighbours to jointly redevelop the alleys behind their building. Thus, the project is based on three existing elements: professional expertise of the initiators (both are engineers by training); shared or potentially shared physical spaces; and a collective desire for autonomy from the dominant centralized system, even if said system almost exclusively uses renewable energy. This shows that autonomy at neighbourhood level is considered more important by the actors than the “simple” use of renewable energy. The scaling-up objective led the members of the Celsius project to create the Solon citizen group to support other citizen experiences of ecological transition in the neighbourhood. The second case study, the Coteau Vert project, is supported by a housing cooperative. In these structures – of which there are many in Montreal – the members are responsible for both the building and its infrastructure, and are personally involved in the maintenance work. The geothermal project emerged at the initiative of members with strong environmental values. Although both projects encounter implementation difficulties – the first because of administrative limitations, the second because of technical difficulties – the results of the surveys show that the actors’ motivations have sound support from prior spaces of collective action, helping them to bypass obstacles and leading to the success of the project.

Chapter A3. Energy communities and commons: Rethinking collective action through inhabited spaces, by Marta Pappalardo Pappalardo’s chapter reports on the same collective dynamics, combining democratic governance, energy objectives and living together, this time studied in the operational phase. The chapter draws on the theory of the urban commons from the Italian beni comuni movement and examines governance by taking a close look at the energy-using practices of two participatory housing experiments. In this sense, the initiatives of collective self-consumption of electricity, where actors come together to share photovoltaic energy produced and consumed in situ, are revealed as key spaces for the emergence of this “governance through practices”. The surveys, conducted in two participatory housing projects – Les Colibres in France, and Soubeyran in Switzerland – reveal the relationship between the nature of the shared spaces and the establishment of rules for sharing energy. While the commons model favours the emergence of

30  Section A Introduction: Motivation and internal dynamics horizontal governance, where the different sensibilities and types of expertise of group members may bloom, the intrinsic condition of participatory housing, where several common spaces are shared between the community members, gives rise to unexpected power dynamics deeply entangled with the functioning of shared spaces. In the shared spaces, where individual energy consumption practices are subject to the social control of group members, energy sharing is contingent on explicit exchanges and rules. Yet, in the individual dwellings, protected by privacy, practices are not accounted for and inhabitants are free to do “what they want”. The results also show that this open, formal governance is accompanied by non-verbal communications and informal practices, interwoven into the very organization of inhabited spaces. These arrangements, whether formal or informal, allow the group to survive, even if at the cost of putting on the backburner certain requirements regarding the temporal adjustment of energy consumption and production.

Chapter A4. Anticipating energy communities in urban projects: Challenges and limits, by Inès Ramirez-Cobo, Gilles Debizet and Silvère Tribout The chapter by Ramirez-Cobo, Tribout and Debizet poses similar questions about the management of a project bringing together not only actors with divergent interests but also specialized professional experts. It focuses on the design phase of an urban project, understood as a project that transforms a space through the construction of buildings and networks for the benefit of present and future residents, and businesses. Analysing two urban projects with strong ambitions in terms of in-situ production, sharing and consumption of renewable energy, the BlueFactory in Switzerland and the Eco-Hameau des Granges in France, the authors shed light on the dynamics of negotiation between the pilots and designers of the “urban project” and those of the “energy project”. The theoretical framework borrows from the theory of socio-technical assemblages to qualify the interactions between actors and energy systems, and also urban systems. It then implements this theory to the notion of communities of professional practice sharing values, expertise and interpersonal capacities. The qualitative analysis of the two design processes – urban and energy – shows that the significant involvement and action of “pivotal” actors lead to negotiations between the actors of the “urban project” and those of the “energy project”. Such negotiations do not revolve only around disagreements of an economic or material type, but also concern more or less explicit discursive dimensions. Finally, the entry into the negotiation of large energy operators leads to the abandonment of the on-the-spot renewable energy project. The influence of incumbent energy distribution operator calls into question the energy local sharing and thus the model of the energy community.

A.1 Inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to renewable energy pooling and sharing A prospective scenario approach Antoine Martin, Marie-France Agnoletti and Eric Brangier 1 Introduction The aim of this paper is to report the applied results of a study that focused on future needs related to energy for housing. It consisted of 36 needs anticipation interviews with ordinary users, precursory users and experts. This type of interview, inspired by Brangier et al. (2019), aims to generate knowledge about future needs and activities, by supporting the mental construction of a representation of the future, based on participants’ lived experiences of energy for housing. This study had two goals: a methodological one, to measure the contribution of the different profles mobilized to anticipate future needs, and an applied one, to anticipate future needs related to energy for housing. In this paper, we focus only on the applied objective, which is to describe future and present user needs related to energy for housing, through the description of activities and general needs. Our interviews did not focus specifcally on energy communities in the sense of a group of individuals sharing means of energy production or storage, even if they were partly carried out with inhabitants enrolled in such energy communities (as well as inhabitants with individual use of energy or connected to conventional energy grids). In this paper, we explore the different ways of forming energy communities, through collective activities that will emerge related to energy in the home and which will have to be supported by future systems. Such activities related to energy for housing are carried out by several households or in collaboration with several households. Our view is that designing tools requires an understanding of user needs and activities since the tools aim to meet needs that are linked to the purposes of these activities. Thus, knowledge of human activity helps to defne artefacts (technology, service, organization or system), their functionalities and the characteristics of the associated interfaces, so that they are useful, usable and adapted to users. We frst present theoretical elements concerning the needs analysis and anticipation, the importance of users in energy systems and activities related to energy for housing. We then describe the method and the results.

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We conclude with a discussion of our results, focusing on emerging collective activities. 1.1 User needs as a starting point for design 1.1.1 Enriching designers’ representation with the needs analysis In ergonomics, it is common to start with a user needs analysis (Barré et al., 2018; French, 1985; International Organization for Standardization, 2019; Loup-Escande et al., 2014; Pahl et al., 2007). This step should enrich the designers’ representation of the users, enabling them to design adapted artefacts that are accepted, usable and satisfactory (Loup-Escande et al., 2014). Designers refer to a hypothetical representation, which does not necessarily refect reality, of the users’ needs and use of the artefact (Hassenzahl, 2018; Norman, 1988). Thus, the aim of the needs analysis is to provide the designer with knowledge about the user and their needs, in order to enrich the designer’s representation of the user. By having knowledge of the users’ needs, the designer is able to build a representation that is more realistic and more likely to suit them. From a practical point of view, designers use user needs to come up with ideas for solutions. They defne the utility of the artefact, what it will be used for, and the benefts it will bring to users (Brangier, 2006; Loup-Escande et al., 2013; Scapin and Bastien, 2001). The designer also relies on these elements to select the characteristics of the artefact so that it will be adapted to the users’ abilities and the situation of use, and therefore be usable (Scapin and Bastien, 2001). Finally, knowledge of needs enables the designer to implement elements in the artefact that will be a source of satisfaction, well-being or pleasure for the user (Brangier, 2006). 1.1.2 Pragmatic and hedonic user needs Pragmatic and hedonic user needs should be taken into account in the design (Brangier and Marache-Francisco, 2020; Hassenzahl, 2018; Loup-Escande et al., 2013, 2014; Mahlke, 2008). Pragmatic needs refer to the user activity and the quality of interaction offered by the artefact (Hassenzahl, 2018). The artefact must enable users to carry out the tasks and actions that will allow them to achieve the objectives of their activity (Loup-Escande et al., 2013). It must also enable them to carry out their actions and tasks effciently, by offering them interaction adapted to their abilities and activity. These needs can be linked to the notions of: utility, so that the users achieve their objectives; accessibility, so that the users can use the artefact and usability, so that the users can achieve their objectives effectively, effciently and satisfactorily (Brangier et al., 2010; Brangier and Marache-Francisco, 2020). In the sense of functional needs, the artefact is a means of supporting the activity somewhat effectively. To do this, artefacts must offer functions adapted

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to the activity along with satisfactory interaction modalities. Hedonic needs refer to pleasure and the psychological well-being of the user. It is the capacity of the artefact to meet basic psychological needs (Hassenzahl, 2018). These basic needs are qualities of experience that individuals seek to achieve and that motivate action (Sheldon et al., 2001; Sheldon and Gunz, 2009). They are linked to the psychological and social development of the individual. They are universal and infuence the goals and behaviours of individuals (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Sheldon et al. (2001) identifed nine psychological needs, namely, autonomy, competence, relationships with others, self-esteem, security, pleasure or stimulation, self-actualization or meaning, popularity or infuence and physical fulflment. General categories of pragmatic and hedonic needs which refect abstract and macroscopic descriptions of needs are not very useful for designing artefacts. It is necessary to detail needs and defne their characteristics (Brangier, 2006). The level of granularity of the requirement is also used to express this idea of “general” needs that can be honed into “detailed” needs (Loup-Escande et al., 2014). General and detailed needs are in fact the operationalization of fundamental pragmatic and hedonic needs, with a user, in a given situation and with a particular artefact. This is how they take shape in reality. It is these needs that must be taken into account in the design of user-friendly artefacts. 1.1.3 Anticipation of user needs The demand for future artefact design leads to taking into account users’ future needs and designing artefacts adapted to future users (Barré et al., 2018; Bourgeois-Bougrine et al., 2018; Brangier et al., 2017; Loup-Escande et al., 2013). Prospective ergonomics (Brangier and Robert, 2014; Robert and Brangier, 2012), a future-oriented branch of ergonomics, is intended to contribute to this task. Its approach consists frst of anticipating future needs and defning ideas for future artefacts that meet these needs. It is therefore a question of identifying future user needs at an early stage. However, both users and designers are limited in their ability to identify or imagine these needs. Designers fnd it diffcult to imagine the real needs of users because they rely on a hypothetical representation of the interaction between the user and the artefact (Hassenzahl, 2018; Norman, 1988). Users’ diffculties mainly relate to their inability to imagine, frstly, an artefact they do not know or that does not exist (Anastassova et al., 2007; Anastassova and Mayora-Ibarra, 2009; Barré et al., 2018; Bourgeois-Bougrine et al., 2018; Loup-Escande et al., 2014; Petiot and Yannou, 2004); secondly, the future (Barré et al., 2018; Bourgeois-Bougrine et al., 2018; Trope and Liberman, 2003, 2010) and thirdly, new needs (Spérandio, 2001, cited by Anastassova, 2006). While users and designers are limited in their ability to anticipate future needs, some individuals are assumed to have a better ability to imagine

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the future (Brangier et al., 2019). Experts are known to have professional expertise in the target feld, obtained through their education and professional experience. This expertise is composed of experiential and theoretical knowledge (Brangier et al., 2019; Visser and Falzon, 1988). It allows them to have an elaborate representation of the future of the targeted feld (Brangier et al., 2019). However, the involvement of users in anticipating needs is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of a design that does not take into account the users’ real life. To access their mental model, it seems obvious to involve users at this early stage but, as we have seen above, users have serious limitations when anticipating needs. To overcome this diffculty, one may involve specifc ones: precursory users, who can be defned as individuals who experience activities or artefacts identifed as precursory or prospective. Precursory users should therefore be useful in anticipating needs as they can detect those not yet felt by ordinary users and develop rich representations of the feld through their expertise in usage, which can provide them with the ability to anticipate future needs. 1.2 Users and energy systems 1.2.1 Users: a key parameter for the success of energy systems Such concerns equally apply to the feld of energy. Users greatly infuence the success of energy projects, and are sometimes considered as having as much infuence as the technologies themselves (Fournis and Fortin, 2017). In the most extreme cases, the technologies may not be accepted, such as wind farms, which have sometimes been objects of rejection (Ellis et al., 2007; Hall et al., 2013). Furthermore, acceptance and use are not suffcient criteria for success. Particular attention must be paid to activities and behaviours generated by technical systems. For example, in the building sector, experiments to reduce energy consumption take place with a focus on the energy effciency of buildings and equipment. Given the fact that inhabitants’ behaviour can greatly affect energy consumption (Delzendeh et  al., 2017; Swan and Ugursal, 2009), the estimated reductions in energy consumption are not observed (Blaise and Glachant, 2019; Sidler, 2011). This discrepancy can be explained by differences between the actual needs of users and the representation of user activities and needs by building and energy system designers. Revell and Stanton (2017) showed that users can increase their energy consumption, even as they seek to reduce it, if they do not have a device that fts their mental model of the activity (e.g., heating), or their representation of it. These phenomena underline the importance that must be attached to users to ensure that energy systems are accepted and used in a desirable way. They also reveal that residential energy systems are only as effcient as they are adapted to usages and users. Thus, technical research into energy

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effciency and support in controlling energy consumption must go hand in hand with work to ensure real compatibility between the technical devices and the inhabitants. The user is therefore a primary factor in the success of energy systems. Nonetheless, it is the factor least studied and least integrated to the design (Delzendeh et al., 2017). 1.2.2 Inhabitants’ activities related to energy for housing The desire to operate an energy transition is at the origin of the diversifcation of energy sources, specifcally, towards renewable energies (Reuß et al., 2017). Such energies are spatially distributed and mostly fuctuating, which implies that energy production does not necessarily match energy consumption. These very specifc characteristics drive the emergence of new domestic energy-related activities (self-production, self-consumption, storage, etc.), which call for new artefacts to assist these new activities both individually and collectively. Activities related to energy in the home (both individual and collective) are those that will be carried out collectively by inhabitants in the case of energy communities. Thus, the knowledge of these activities and how they might change is a prerequisite for the defnition of artefacts which will assist collective activities related to energy in the home. There seem to be no energy-related activities in the home, at least no activities with the aim of energy effciency. The literature refers to domestic activities (maintenance, entertainment, air conditioning, food, lighting, work and cleaning) which lead to energy consumption (Bonnin, 2016; Bovay, 1987; Guibourdenche, 2013; Guibourdenche et al., 2015). For example, if an inhabitant cooks, their activity is not oriented towards energy consumption, but it does cause consumption. In conjunction with these domestic activities, energy consumption management activities, whose objective is to reduce the energy consumption related to an activity or the use of equipment, and energy system management activities, whose objective is to manage the production and resale of energy, are observed anecdotally and among energy-producing inhabitants (Lahoual and Fréjus, 2013). Even in the case of energy consumption management activities, it is not energy effciency that motivates the activity, but rather cost and comfort (Guibourdenche et al., 2015; Lévy et al., 2014).

2 Method 2.1 Participants A total of 36 participants took part in the study and formed three groups: ordinary users, precursory users and experts. A total of 14 precursor users, 11 ordinary users and 11 experts were involved in this study, of whom 12 were women and 24 men, aged from 25 to 74 (M = 43.50, σ = 14.58).

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The precursory users were recruited for their precursory uses in the felds of energy and housing. Said uses were identifed through a review of the prospective literature on energy and housing (Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Energie, 2012, 2016). The experts were recruited for their professional expertise in the felds of energy and/or housing (e.g., Researcher in Urban Planning and Expert from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Finally, ordinary users were recruited for having no professional expertise or precursory use in these felds. Precursory users and experts were identifed on social networks, professional social networks and via internet searches. The precursory users were composed of inhabitants of off-grid individual housing, the off-grid housing/energy community, grid-connected individual housing and a grid-connected housing/energy community (see Table A1.1). Participants were unpaid and gave their informed consent prior to participating in the study.

Table A1.1 Precursory users’ profles Individual off grid – Inhabitant of a truck with self-production, storage and self-consumption of energy – Inhabitant of a self-built, non-interconnected hut with self-generation, storage and self-consumption of energy – Inhabitant of a self-built, non-interconnected house with self-generation and energy storage – Inhabitant of a mobile, energy self-suffcient and self-built tiny house Community off grid – Inhabitant of a non-interconnected collective building with selfproduction, energy storage and self-consumption of energy – Inhabitant of a non-interconnected collective building with selfproduction, storage and self-consumption of energy – Inhabitant of a self-built, participatory and non-interconnected eco-village Network-connected individual – Inhabitant of an eco-neighbourhood – Inhabitant of a smart house with self-production, self-built storage and self-consumption of energy – Inhabitant of a smart house with self-production, storage and selfconsumption of energy – User of hydrogen energy at home from home-made devices Network-connected community – Inhabitant of a participatory and inter-generational eco-neighbourhood, with self-generation of energy – Inhabitant of a participatory eco-district, self-built by the inhabitants, with self-production and self-consumption of energy – Member of a photovoltaic village power plant

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2.2 Protocol Interviews were conducted face-to-face, individually and were recorded using a voice recorder. They lasted on average 106.68 minutes, totalling 59 hours and 25 minutes. There was no difference in the length of the interviews according to the groups. Activity cards were used to structure the interviews; their purpose was to support the verbalization of experiences of energy-related activities in the house. These activity cards are a textual and visual description of inhabitants’ activities concerning three themes: (1) energy system installation, (2) energy system management and (3) energy consumption management. These maps were constructed on the basis of a literature review of activities related to energy for housing, and exploratory interviews with nine inhabitants with energy self-production. Needs anticipation interviews were conducted in fve stages. In the frst stage, the participants were invited to talk freely about energy for housing. They were then asked to verbalize their past experiences with energy for the habitat, using activity cards. This step was repeated for each of the three activity cards. After this frst part of the experience, the interviewer guided the participants to project themselves into the future, following the recommendations of the literature on future-oriented cognition (for a review see Colin et al., 2021). To improve participants’ representations of the future, they were asked to describe their general long-term vision of the future. They were subsequently requested to very precisely imagine the place where they would live in this future, and orally describe this representation in as much detail as possible. Next, the participants were asked to come up with ideas about the future using the three activity cards. This step was repeated for each of the said cards. The interview ended with a socio-demographic questionnaire on their perceived expertise in the felds of energy and habitat. 2.3 Analysis After the interviews were transcribed, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the corpus to identify activities related to energy for housing, general user needs, elements that support a positive user experience, and those that lead to a negative user experience. Elements that support a positive user experience are those that contribute to the satisfaction of user needs. These must be considered in the design of artefacts. Elements that result in a negative user experience are those that contribute to dissatisfaction in user needs. These are to be avoided or pose problems to solve when designing artefacts. These elements have been identifed on the basis of a coding grid related to corpus analysis. The corpus was also subject to a lexical analysis and a statistical analysis of the needs evoked by the participants. These analyses are not described in this paper.

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3 Results 3.1 Activities related to energy in the home The analysis of the corpus of interviews allowed us to identify the activities carried out by the participants and the goals that these activities seek to achieve. Our results led us to specify activities identifed in the exploratory interviews, namely those related to the installation/renovation of the energy system (see Table A1.2). The results also allowed us to detail activities for energy system management (see Table A1.3) and for energy consumption management (see Table A1.4). Domestic activities are not set out here because they were not specifcally addressed in our interviews and analyses. However, we identifed an extra-domestic activity that causes energy consumption in the habitat, namely, transport. For example, charging a vehicle at home (e.g., with electricity) causes home energy consumption. Table A1.2 Energy system installation/renovation activities Activity

Goal

Inquire

Have information on energy technologies (cost, ecological footprint, etc.), their installation, fnancing and operation. Making a decision, sometimes collectively with the individuals who own and use the system, on whether to install or renovate the energy system and whether to opt for particular energy technologies. Have an idea of the composition and organization of its energy system. Have an idea of the future operation, management, use and cost/beneft of its energy system. Have organized the progress of the installation or renovation. Be in accordance with the legal requirements (works, self-consumption, etc.) related to the installation or renovation of the energy system. Have the fnancing (equity, collective fnancing, loans, grants, tax rebates) necessary for the installation or renovation of the energy system. Have a functioning energy system. Be verifed as meeting regulatory standards and/ or expected performance. To have the knowledge of the operation and use of its system, its energy technologies.

Decide

Design the system Anticipate the exploitation Plan the work Administer

Financing the acquisition and the work Install/Renovate Check compliance Appropriate the system

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Table A1.3 Energy system management activities (* activities previously identifed in the literature) Activity

Goal

Check operation*

To know if its system, its energy technologies are working. To know the condition of its system, its energy technologies. To have the data related to its system, its energy technologies organized, recorded and analysed. Keep its system, its energy technologies in working order. Restore its system and energy technologies to working order after a breakdown or damage. Have energy. Store, (self)-consume or redistribute energy. Pay for energy provided by another individual or organization. Having (re)distributed energy to an individual or organization.

Check condition Follow up* Keep in condition Repair Supply energy Choose the use of energy Buy energy Distribute energy

Table A1.4 Energy consumption management activities (* activities previously identifed in the literature) Activity

Goal

Consult consumption*

Have general or specifc energy consumption information, in real or delayed time. To have an idea of the (future) consumption related to an activity or the use of equipment. Have a knowledge of the elements causing or varying energy consumption. To know the available energy (on an individual or network scale). To have an idea of the future energy available (on an individual or network scale), based on consumption and production parameters. To have reduced or optimized its consumption related to its activity. To have reduced or optimized its consumption related to equipment.

Anticipate/Simulate consumption Understand consumption Consult the available energy Anticipate/Simulate available energy Change activity* Act on equipment*

3.2 General needs related to energy in the home Participants’ discourse was analysed to identify the variables that motivate users’ decisions regarding energy for housing. However, our results do not indicate user preferences regarding these variables. Eight general needs were identifed: energy self-suffciency, independence from other people

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and organizations, involvement in the energy system, comfort, respect for the environment, cost/beneft, enthusiasm for technology and safety (see Table A1.5). 3.3 Future use scenarios related to energy in the home Patterns of the activities and needs that characterized precursory users were identifed and categorized to describe future users. To do this, we relied on key variables, recognized as relevant for describing users, and related to the activity (energy system sharing, installation/maintenance, energy supply, energy management, energy storage, energy distribution, technical and behavioural energy management). These key variables also considered needs (respect for the environment, comfort, involvement, control/independence, rentability/cost, energy self-suffciency, enthusiasm for technology and safety) and knowledge of energy in the home. For each interview with a precursory user, the position/value of each variable was established on the basis of said user’s discourse. The values for each variable were grouped in a table to allow the patterns of precursory users’ activities and needs to be categorized as objectively as possible. A pattern of needs and activities is considered prospective, even if independently, the positions of the variables that compose it are not recognized as precursory. Their combination characterizes a precursory/future user. The grouping of the most similar profles was made according to the slightest differences in the combination of values Table A1.5 General needs related to energy for housing General needs Energy self-suffciency

Description

The user wants to be able to provide for his energy needs by his own means, in order to ensure its energy security (in the event of a grid failure), its energy supply in non-interconnected areas and to control the characteristics of its energy (price, respect for the environment, etc.). Control/Independence The user wishes not to be depending on other people from other people and or organizations (neighbours, the state, an energy organizations supplier or a company) to manage and use their energy system and energy. Involvement in the energy The user wants to be involved in the management system and use of its energy system. Comfort The user wishes to improve their comfort. Respect for the The user wishes to have an energy system with the environment less important impact on the environment. Proftability/Cost The user wishes to energy system to be cost accessible and proftable. Enthusiasm for technology The user wishes to experiment new technologies. Security The user wishes to feel that the energy system is secure.

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taken from the different variables (activity and needs), to summarize the characteristics and activities of precursory users. These data were written in the form of use scenarios, to generally describe the contexts of future use in energy for housing, and in the form of personas, to describe these scenarios in a more embodied way. Four use scenarios, with their respective personas, were identifed: –

–

Scenario 1- The energy self-suffcient household: In this scenario, respect for the environment and self-suffciency guide the inhabitant’s energy choices in the home. These are materialized in a resumption of the inhabitants’ power over their energy, with a totally self-suffcient energy system not connected to the grid. Being totally self-suffcient in energy is a way of emancipating oneself from the “system” and getting closer to “nature”. On one hand, producing energy means no longer being dependent on the state and energy suppliers. It thus means having control over the cost of energy, feeling the certainty and responsibility that energy is produced in conditions that respect the environment and humans, and also ensuring the security of energy supply. At the same time, since energy production is local and dependent on the weather, it is a way of recreating links with one’s environment, with the space in which one lives. It is a way of changing the way of living in that space. While the inhabitants are somewhat inclined to participate in the installation of the energy system, it is not an absolute necessity and the installation can be made by or with the help of professionals. This search for energy autarky is mainly refected in a strong autonomy concerning the management of the energy system and a frm control of energy consumption. The inhabitants are in charge of the daily management of the production and storage of energy, routine maintenance (maintenance and small repairs) and follow-up. To adapt their energy consumption to their energy production and storage capacity, the domestic appliances they use are selected according to energy performance. Inhabitants are prepared or even keen to reduce their level of comfort and adapt their daily activities to reduce or spread out their energy consumption. This requires, in particular, being able to anticipate their energy consumption and production so that they can move their activities to when energy is available. This regaining control of their energy is accompanied by an increase in the inhabitants’ knowledge of energy. Scenario 2- The energiphile household: In this scenario, the increase in knowledge and skills about energy and the enthusiasm for new technologies lead inhabitants to want to get involved and regain control of energy in their homes. In today’s “do-it-yourself” culture, residents want to install and manage their energy system so that they can optimize and rationalize it. The improvement of the energy system is mainly achieved through the self-production of energy, the increased energy effciency of technologies and automation. However, these changes must not lead to

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Antoine Martin et al. compromises in inhabitants’ comfort. Self-generation and energy optimization also provide an opportunity to secure a system that is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. This strong involvement is refected in a trend towards self-installation and a strong interest in managing the energy system, particularly with regard to monitoring production and supply, and the choice of energy use (self-consumption, storage or redistribution). Redistribution, along with the sale of energy, is an important element that strongly infuences the proftability of the system. In terms of energy consumption management, it is not a question of changing one’s lifestyle but rather of controlling the uses that can be made of it (for example, programming the washing machine so that it starts when the weather is nice), acting on the equipment (energy effciency and detection of over-consumption) and precisely monitoring its consumption. Scenario 3- The household member of an energy community: In this scenario, respect for the environment, independence and solidarity guide the choices made by households regarding energy in the home. The desire to no longer depend on the policies of the state and major energy suppliers and to beneft from environmentally friendly energy pushes individuals towards alternatives and delocalized modes of energy production. However, these energy systems are expensive and can be perceived as individualistic when they are set up for one household alone. The solution of sharing is therefore a means of gaining access to these energy systems while remaining within a setting of solidarity. This sharing takes the form of energy communities, which can be created for individual or collective housing. These communities collectively reappropriate energy by self-producing it. The sharing of energy systems in communities of individuals reorganizes all energy-related activities in the home. From designing, to fnancing and installing the energy system, decisions must be made collectively. Day-to-day management is not necessarily shared and can be outsourced or assumed by a limited number of inhabitants. However, the governance of the system is shared and requires the inhabitants to get together to make decisions. Collective energy management must allow for the fair distribution of energy among the inhabitants. To this end, the domestic appliances that can be used by the inhabitants must meet energy performance criteria established by the community. Rules can also regulate the behaviour of inhabitants to adapt their energy consumption, especially when there is a greater energy demand than the amount of energy available. Scenario 4- The passive household: In this scenario, there is a consensus on access to more environmentally friendly energy, but this should not have an impact on its price or on inhabitants’ comfort. It should not, furthermore, require any particular involvement of the inhabitant. This more environmentally friendly energy can be produced by centralized

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or local production systems, as long as they do not require the particular involvement of the inhabitant. It is therefore a question of modifying the means of energy production without impacting the inhabitant. To do this, the change in the means of production of energy plants must be “invisible” to the user. In the case of local energy systems, they must be totally autonomous or complementarily managed by a state or professional organization. Local energy production can also be a way to lower the energy bill. This scenario is marked by almost non-existent user involvement in the management of the energy system, and little involvement in energy management activities. The installation is carried out by professionals. Residents may wish to know the source of the energy they use. If there is local production, local storage of energy and resale, the inhabitants do not wish to have to manage it. Energy management should not be restrictive and should not have any impact on comfort and lifestyle. It can be achieved through the acquisition of energy-effcient equipment. In this scenario, the inhabitant is limited to paying their bill and possibly consulting their consumption or the source of their energy.

4 Discussion The applied objective of this study was to provide a description of present and future needs, related to energy for housing. This study attempts to respond to the criticism of Delzendeh et al. (2017), which claims that humans are not suffciently taken into consideration in the design of energy systems, although they are an important factor in energy system success. Our results, derived from the exploratory interviews and confrmed by the future-oriented interviews, allow us to introduce activities related to the installation/renovation of the energy system that are not, to our knowledge, detailed in the literature. The analysis of the interviews also enabled us to detail the activities for the energy system management and energy consumption management. It would seem that purely energy-related activities, whose objective is to achieve an energy goal, are emerging in the habitat. Eight general needs related to energy in the home were also identifed: energy self-suffciency, independence from other people and organizations, involvement in the energy system, comfort, respect for the environment, proftability/cost, enthusiasm for technology and safety. These needs are in line with the literature. In a study on the logics of households when using three energy management devices, La Branche (2015) identifed six action logics: housing control, energy, comfort, ecological, economic and technoplay. Our results are also consistent with those of Kalkbrenner (2019) on user preferences for battery storage systems. They identify the following factors that are consistent with our results: autarky, network control and availability, service partnership with the company and economic factors. The author also identifes two factors not found in our study, namely the implemented

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concept (individual or communal) and the mode of ownership (collective, individual, non-owner or leasing). Finally, we fnd the users’ usage concerns identifed by Brangier et al. (2019); in this study focus groups with experts were conducted on hydrogen energy. The experts identifed four user concerns: ecology, proftability, safety and autonomy. The analysis of the profles of the precursory users through the identifcation of their activity patterns and needs led to the identifcation of four scenarios for future uses of energy in the home. Scenario 1 (the energy self-suffcient household) is the only one where the users are totally self-suffcient and do not present any collective energy-related activities. In the other three scenarios, we fnd different intentional ways of forming a community around energy. Scenario 2 (the energiphile household) does not show any intention of creating a community around energy. However, collective activities are associated with this scenario, particularly in relation to the redistribution of energy, in the form of selling, bartering, negotiating or giving. Scenario 3 (the household member of an energy community) is clearly part of an approach in which forming a community around energy is a motivation. In this scenario, while energy production and storage are carried out locally (in situ or not), all activities related to energy in the home are potentially made collective, from system design, through to production management and behavioural control of consumption. Finally, Scenario 4 (the passive household) is a scenario in which the inhabitants can be connected to the conventional grid or can be part of a local energy community but do not wish to be involved or see their daily lives impacted. As in Scenario 2, they can have collective activities regarding the redistribution or sharing of energy, as long as these activities are supported by the system or an organization. These three future scenarios, implying a form of energy collectivity, match the three types of energy-sharing collectives identifed by Bonnardot et al. (2021) in an anticipation workshop: collectives of individuals (Scenario 2), autonomous collectives (Scenario 3) and supported collectives (Scenario 4). The scenarios of future uses suggest different levels of inhabitant involvement. In two of the three scenarios that present collective activities, there is a desire to be involved in the management of the energy system. However, the study of trends suggests that the development of energy systems in the home is mainly oriented towards applications where the inhabitant is passive (automation, artifcial intelligence, management by an organization, etc.). Thus, it seems important to initiate the development of energy systems for housing, which involve the inhabitants in the management of the energy system, in both distributed and centralized logics. This involvement of users could also prove benefcial for the energy transition by making it possible to support energy sobriety to reduce energy demand. There are, therefore, different ways of forming a community around energy. They are motivated by different reasons and give rise to different individual and collective activities. They consequently need to be supported by different and adapted artefacts.

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5 Conclusion This paper aimed to describe present and emerging needs and activities related to energy in the home (both individual and collective) to assist the defnition and design of energy collective tools. We put forward the idea that decentralized energy systems generate new collective and individual activities for users and respond to needs linked to different values and ideologies. To ensure that decentralized energy systems are accepted and usable, and that they perform well, they need to be adapted to such activities and needs. This can be done by thinking about core technologies, their deployment (network, sizing, etc.), solutions (technical and organizational) that can support their use, such as the ambient system, and tools to help control consumption for collective housing.

Acknowledgements This work was partly supported by the French PIA project “Lorraine Université d’Excellence”, reference ANR-15-IDEX-04-LUE.

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A.2 Shared geothermal energy projects in Montreal The importance of pre-existing collective action spaces Myriam Proulx and Sophie Van Neste 1 Introduction Interest and support for decentralized, shared, community-managed, renewable energy systems has been growing in different countries. This chapter presents two projects of shared geothermal energy systems in Quebec, Canada, where hydroelectricity dominates. Despite the fact that this setting is not favorable to the development of this type of energy plan, local projects in Montreal have emerged nevertheless. In this chapter, we study one factor for their emergence which is still understudied in the literature – the pre-existing collective action spaces contributing to the development of novel energy initiatives. As we will see, while pre-existing structures and spaces of collective action have helped with the emergence of these initiatives, they have also affected their trajectories and the challenges they face. We begin by presenting the Quebec context for energy provision and the limitations of local authorities. We then follow with a discussion of energy community and the role of existing collective action spaces. Two initiatives are then presented and compared to better understand their trajectories in relation to the type of collective action spaces on which they were built.

2 The context of decentralized renewable energy in Quebec cities The Quebec provincial energy landscape offers a particular context for energy projects, especially when it comes to decentralized renewable energy. According to 2018 data, hydroelectricity is responsible for 95% of Quebec’s total electrical production, followed by wind, oil, natural gas, and solar energy. Largely dominated by hydroelectric power, it means that in Quebec, renewable energy dominates the energy portfolio. This context forms the structure for the socio-technical imaginaries and expectations regarding energy. Hydroelectricity is also associated with Quebec heritage and the nationalist movement of the 1970s when the building of large dams was associated with the development and modernization of Quebec. Previously, in the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-5

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1940s and 1950s, electrifcation was provided through local electrical distribution co-ops which were later incorporated into a centralized state agency under the name Hydro-Quebec (MacArthur, 2017; Savard, 2014). Since its creation in 1944, Hydro-Quebec has been responsible for the majority of the production, transmission, and distribution of electricity in the province. Although large and small dams have been contested in Quebec (on behalf of indigenous rights and natural habitat protection), they retain a halo of strong ecological performance ensuring a privileged position for Quebecers in terms of low-carbon energy production (Desbiens, 2004; Savard, 2014). The attractiveness of developing other renewable energy is therefore lower, which is also related to the inherent costs of other sources when compared to hydroelectricity or gas (MacArthur, 2017). Geothermal energy, which is used in the shared community projects presented in this chapter, is a marginal source of energy in Quebec and Canada. It is used for the production of heat and air conditioning from heat pumps or hot water sources, but not for the production of electricity (Raymond et al., 2015). According to the 2010 Canadian GeoExchange Coalition (CGC) report, the geothermal market in Canada, all variations combined, experienced a signifcant increase between 2005 and 2008 and then declined in 2010 (Canadian GeoExchange Coalition, 2010). These variations can be explained by fuctuation in the price of oil and gas, the fnancial crisis of 2008 and the implementation and loss of several fnancial assistance programs (Raymond et al., 2015). The latest data on the number of installations of geothermal entities dates from 2013. The Canadian government offers few measures that allow local communities to take ownership of energy issues and develop their own renewable energy projects (Van Neste, Lessard, and Madénian, 2019). In fact, in Canada, there is very little of this type of development, particularly in urban areas (MacArthur, 2017; Rezaei and Rosen, 2012). Decentralized energy projects are, to a large extent, mostly carried out in remote areas or outside densely populated areas, where the hydroelectric or gas grid cannot be connected. In Ontario, however, local renewable energy sources are seen as part of the solution for reducing provincial reliance on coal. MacArthur (2017) counted that of the 200 energy-generating co-operatives developed from 1990 to 2016 in Canada, the vast majority were located in Ontario. Energy community projects are mainly developed and managed by municipalities and co-operatives, then to a lesser extent by community associations (Hoicka and MacArthur, 2018). The allocation of municipal power in Canada comes from provincial governments, which creates disparities in the power and competencies of municipalities (Tozer, 2013). In Quebec, cities have very little power over energy matters (Van Neste, Lessard, and Madenian, 2019). The legal framework and Hydro-Quebec’s monopoly provide an unfavorable context to innovate locally in energy matters. Nevertheless, the City of Montreal created an Offce for ecological transition and resilience in 2018 and announced

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many ambitious policies, such as reaching carbo-neutrality for buildings by 2050. Grassroots organizations speak of energy transition and energy effciency, with a broader vision of social change. In the context described, why and how do grassroots projects for shared geothermal energy develop in Montreal?

3 Energy community: varying meanings and motivations In recent years, several contributions to “energy community” have been made, especially in Europe (Bauwens, 2016; Boon and Dieperink, 2014; Capellán-Pérez, Campos-Celador; Terés-Zubiaga, 2018; Dóci and Vasileiadou, 2015; Smith, Hargreaves, et al., 2016; Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008). Scholars have shown the polysemy of the term, the different meanings, and motivations from actors as well as the policy incentives. Walker and Devine-Wright (2008) proposed a defnition and typologies for the types of functions and owners of energy community projects. The term energy community is rather broad and encompasses several types of energy development. An ideal-typical energy community project would be led and managed by a group of locals with profts distributed among the local community. Energy community projects have also been analyzed as grassroots innovations (Seyfang et al., 2014; Smith, Hargreaves et al., 2016). The literature on the motivations surrounding energy communities is quite varied. Dóci and Vasileiadou (2015) looked at the motivations of individuals when participating in renewable energy communities. The authors concluded that there are three categories of motivation which are primarily related to a gain, i.e., cost reduction, and to normative considerations, such as climate change. Then to a lesser extent, joining a community and having fun are also part of the hedonic motivations. Bauwens (2016) found that the motivations behind integrating energy communities are not similar between individuals. He noticed that heterogenous motivations depend on institutional factors, spatial patterns, and the diffusion of institutional innovation. Hicks and Ison (2018) focus on the “why” and “how” of community renewable energy (CRE), showing that context is key. The authors use the example of Australia and Denmark to show that where addressing climate change is a strong motivation in the former country, an antinuclear sentiment is more signifcant in the latter (Hicks and Ison, 2018). In the literature on energy community, emphasis has been put on the relationship between decentralized energy alternatives and the broader regime of public policy around energy (Dóci, Vasileiadou, and Petersen, 2015; Hoicka and MacArthur, 2018; Seyfang et al., 2014; Smith, Fressoli et al., 2017). In this work, community support (e.g., the funding of pilot projects) and constraints to energy community projects by the State are assessed to better understand their trajectories. This can be understood within a framework of socio-technical transitions in which models of energy community are considered a niche which must be nurtured to progressively change the

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dominant regime. Other contributions have also started to look at the relationship between energy innovations and the urban context – in terms of the regulation of urban development (Blanchard, 2017), and the materiality of new assemblages between energy fows and the urban fabric (Debizet et al., 2016), with the objective of a greater local autonomy and a circular metabolism (Coutard and Rutherford, 2015; Lopez, 2019). While these initiatives have already been discussed in terms of their democratic virtue (speaking of energy democracy), what has been less studied is the pre-existing collective action spaces which help us to understand the emergence, as well as the constraints (and hence trajectory) of energy community projects. Gregg et al. (2020) recently opened up this avenue of research in making explicit links between social innovations and theories of collective action in social movement literature. In particular, they rely on Tilly’s mobilization model which shows that mobilization is a function of the alignment of interests and motivations of participants, access to resources and organizations, as well as opportunities and threats from the external context. Put into other words, pre-existing relational structures count, including formal and informal networks tied to grassroots organizations as well as the heritage of previous mobilizations (student associations, neighborhood groups, churches, etc.). Gregg et al. do not speak, however, of the cultural aspect in social movement studies which revisited this thesis. Scholars emphasized that existing collective action spaces are not necessarily enabling. They often need to be reappropriated and transformed. Even if they provide the support and opportunities to mobilize, some elements of pre-existing collective action spaces may be acting as obstacles to change (McAdam, 2003; Polletta, 2008). In this chapter, pre-existing collective action spaces will be the core of our study of energy community projects in Montreal. Our main objective is to show how, in both cases, these act as enablers and constraints which lead to appropriation, and which trigger specifc challenges tied to the social, political, and material characteristics of these spaces where initiatives emerge. The core of the study is based on documentary analysis and a series of 12 semistructured interviews with initiators and facilitators of shared geothermal energy projects in fve urban housing complexes in Montreal. The emphasis here is on the experience of projects’ initiators since the objective is to understand the emergence of projects in relation to existing structures of collective action, which they had to draw upon. We also focus on two of the fve projects, both carried out in the Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie borough. This borough is an interesting territory since it is the only one in the city of Montreal to have adopted an ecological transition plan. The questions in the interview guide focused on the project and its beginnings, governance and actors involved as well as diffusion of the project and expectations for the future. This chapter describes how each of the two pre-existing collective action spaces enabled the creation of a shared geothermal infrastructure project. Both of these pre-existing spaces will be detailed, followed by a description

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of the appropriation of these spaces used for the geothermal project. A brief review of each of the projects illustrates the issues facing these collective projects, but also, in some cases, how these communities were able to overcome challenges and fnd benefts. The Celsius project is a citizen-driven initiative that started with the development of a green alley. The second project, Le Coteau Vert, is the result of a new green concept in housing co-operatives, which came from the local community.

4 The Celsius project: grassroots initiative as part of a socioecological transition The frst case presented describes how a local alley greening initiative served as a pre-existing space for collective action and as a host for a collective geothermal infrastructure project. 4.1 Pre-existing collective action space: the green back alley initiative The Celsius project is the result of a citizen initiative to set up a shared geothermal infrastructure in a shared back alley. It builds on a previous “green alley” (ruelle verte) project in which the residents had been involved. In Montreal, alleys can be found in many older neighborhoods, located behind duplex and triplex apartment buildings (Regroupement des écoquartiers, 2018), at the edge of private housing lots and public spaces (the alley itself). In Montreal, these back alleys have been physical spaces of resident participation for decades after the abandonment of their original function for the provision of light industrial activity. In back alleys, residents develop collective projects as an extension of their homes and they learn to manage simple common infrastructure materials such as benches, greenery, traffc control, and the sharing of a space for everyday life. The idea for the geothermal project emerged from two neighbors who had just fnished greening their alley. Enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by this common space, as well as by the power of citizens who can collectively lead a project, the two citizens began their frst steps. The alley’s ability to facilitate sharing between neighbors is therefore both a collective social action space where the idea of Celsius emerged, but also the material space imagined for the installation of the geothermal infrastructure. This is how one of the neighbors described the creation of the project: We were just done with our green alley project. We were on a high and had so many ideas for projects, each one crazier than the next. While discussing with one of my neighbors, we thought that the alley might be a good place for vertical [geothermal] wells. […] It’s a good place to pool the infrastructure and make it accessible for the people of the alley. (translation, interview with initiator of Celsius project, 2021)

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The project was created on the pre-existing green alley collective action space, but the residents went broader than their own alley. The neighbors decided to carry out a feasibility study which resulted in the selection of three green alleys in the borough. Through a call for interest sent to the various green alley committees in the neighborhood, the selection was made by the initiators according to fve criteria: (1) technical and economic feasibility; (2) reduction of greenhouse gases, in particular by replacing systems running on fossil fuels; (3) the willingness and involvement of citizens to set up such a project; (4) the acceptability of citizens with regard to the installation of such a system in their alleyways; and (5) the location of the alley in the Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie borough (Solon, 2018). The three alleys selected for the Celsius project were already organized as green alleys, with a citizens’ committee coordinating greening and maintenance activities. These citizens already had certain preoccupations, particularly about greening and the environment. Despite the fact that the idea came from two neighbors of the same green alley, their own alley was not chosen for a shared geothermal infrastructure. Other alleys were more motivated and showed greater civic engagement and it is these more active committees that have taken the ball for the concrete implementation of the project.

5 Appropriation and modulation of the collective action space After choosing the more active and favorable lane committee, there were other steps to organize the mobilization of participants around the shared geothermal energy project; in itself, the green alley committees were not enough. Through the development of the geothermal project, the neighbors went through three additional steps of appropriation and modulation of their collective action space: (1) the creation of the Solon citizen group, a citizen association that carries the project and came to develop other grassroot projects for the ecological transition in the borough, (2) the creation of the Celsius solidarity co-operative, which legally regroups the users of the shared energy, and (3) adjustments and modifcations made to the project, and following problems with the materialization of the infrastructure in the alley. From their initial mobilization phase in green alley committees, the neighbors in the Celsius project quickly formed Solon. Solon is a citizen action group, composed of 33 members involved in the governance of the organization and more than 1000 citizens participating in the projects, that works to improve the residents’ living environments and act in the socio-ecological transition of Montreal (Solon, 2020). Solon goes further than back alley committees, particularly in terms of territorial reach and the search for partners. The group reached out for partners and funding (with funding obtained from foundations, the City of Montreal, and the Federation of municipalities, among others). Solon helps citizens who wish to implement citizen projects that are in line with their mission. They offer

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fnancing, support as well as material resources. Working with university researchers and NGOs, Solon developed its own theories of transformation, valuing citizen appropriation of city and public spaces, with a focus on the use of space rather than its segmentation by property (Audet, Segers, and Manon, 2019). At the heart of this approach, there is an emphasis on mutualization: the pooling of resources, infrastructure, and knowledge (Solon, 2020, interviews). While the green alley committees and Solon provided a vehicle to mobilize residents and build on existing informal networks, neither provided for a formal or legal structure to actually share an energy infrastructure as well as its products, risks, and benefts. We are joined together, but not just to get together and talk, we are here to act. Creating a co-operative provided us with a legal vehicle. Now we are going to be able to fnance projects and make acquisitions for the co-operative. We can operate, develop and expand by working within an ecosystem of partners. (translation, Interview with initiator of the Celsius project, 2021) The last step was thus to create Celsius, a solidarity co-operative. What distinguishes the solidarity co-operative from other types of co-operatives is the diversity of its members. They can be users, producers, workers, and even supporting members aiming for the success of the co-operative and the achievement of a common goal (Ministère de l’économie et de l’innovation, 2021). The Celsius Co-op was created in April 2019 and has around 20 members: it has four supporting members, and all the others are user members. Currently, being a user co-operative, the members live nearby in the same neighborhood. This structure allows for the accommodation of new user members when others decide to integrate the geothermal infrastructure locally. The primary goal of the cooperative is to manage the project; the showcase project frst and then the pilot project. The cooperative therefore takes care of managing subscriptions, invoicing, and maintenance of equipment. The interviews noted that the co-operative structure of Celsius is an important element that defnes the collective value of the project but also participates in the development of the project itself. Beyond the simple fact that the infrastructure is shared, it is the co-operative structure itself as well as the legal entity that forms the backbone of the project. Likewise, according to its initiators, the co-operative model made it possible to move the project forward and provide visibility and credibility in the search for new partners and donors. Another element that seems to have played a role in the accomplishment and development of the project is the fact that the co-operative structure offers a fexible framework for the development of geothermal infrastructure as well as a mode for the further development of the co-operative. The

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infrastructure can be shared in different ways: it can be installed on private or public land and it can be shared between two or more individuals. Additionally, the operating rules for sharing the costs and fees can be defned according to the model chosen by the members of the co-op and above all, the different components of the infrastructure can also be shared in a segmented manner. Over fve years of learning … what we learned over time is that the co-operative tool allows fexibility on what is being pooled, when we talk about common geothermal energy or collective geothermal energy. As part of the showcase project that we are working on now, in the process of digging, the infrastructure shared are the wells, the heat pumps are not. They could be, depending on each situation. The wells are on private land. They could be on collective ground but that would mean yet another confguration. So, depending on the project confguration, the co-operative structure offers us the fexibility to adapt, to adapt it how you want. (translation, interview with initiator of Celsius project, 2021) The concept of fexibility was not a primary motivation in the creation of the solidarity co-operative. It was after encountering a problem that the initiators realized the advantage of this mode of development and the fexibility offered by this structure. Indeed, interviews carried out with the project’s initiators confrmed that the initial plan was largely modifed. The Celsius project was originally developed as a multi-energy heat network supplying the entire alley and built in the alleyway itself. But geothermal energy on a smaller scale was later the focus. No longer was it the complete alley connected to the infrastructure, but rather small sets of a few homes: At the very beginning, the idea was to create a multi-energy powered network but that idea was abandoned fairly quickly. We decided to open the door to the idea of a network, but for the time being we would need to be satisfed with geothermal energy. From there, we decided that it would be a geothermal network for the entire alley. Then, at some point in the project, when we were doing a complete simulation and the work with all the lawyers, engineers, etc., somehow, I don’t know if it was in 2018–2019, but it became micro-networks for heating instead. Kind of like clusters. Um, which at this point became more like the idea of a housing core of like 2–3–4–5–6 participants … whatever, but the reason, for the cluster was that it was simpler … and it could still be dug in the alley! (translation, interview with initiator of Celsius project, 2021) In spring 2021, the project materialized as part of the built environment and a showcase project – called the Project vitrine – was developed on

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Figure A2.1 Drilling of the Celsius showcase project in Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie Photograph by Gérard Lombard (2021).

private land instead of being in the alley (see Figure A2.1). The showcase supplied a total of seven housing units, also selected via a call for candidates from the three preselected alleys, chosen on the basis of technical, social, and environmental criteria.

6 Constraints and benefts of the green alley for Celsius We discussed how the green alley is both a social and material space at the core of the shared geothermal Celsius project. The effect it has on the project, however, is not neutral. What are the advantages and challenges raised by this collective action space, and how did it affect the trajectory of the project? Two dimensions are important. First, the social and material space of the alley did offer constraints, in terms of the differentiated interest and motivation of residents in alleys, as well as the public ownership of the alley. The project was confronted with the fact that the alley is the property of the City. Thus, the drilling and installation of geothermal wells were subject to authorization from the City and required a permit. The problem with this permit is that it can be revoked by the City at any time. Since the geothermal infrastructure was to be installed over the long term, this revocability was a fairly signifcant

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constraint on the project. The project leaders, looking to begin the project in earnest, decided to proceed with the development of a showcase project where the drilling could be carried out on private land. In April 2021, the members of the project still do not know whether the project will ever come to fruition in the alley as initially planned. Second, an important aspect for Celsius regarding the collective aspect of the project is that the alley makes geothermal energy accessible to all. If this initially came with a vision of geothermal energy for all residents of the green alleys, it was facilitated by the structure of the solidarity co-operative they chose for pooling their infrastructure. Their mode of development allows tenants and residents, who do not necessarily have the fnancial or technical resources, to beneft from this infrastructure. For Celsius, this is a solution for Quebec’s socio-ecological transition: The idea of the co-operative model was also to allow anyone to become a co-operator, even if they don’t have the initial fnancial capacity—one of the largest challenges posed by geothermal energy. So, by democratizing the solution it also means democratizing decision-making processes, investment, local returns, etc., etc. I could make you a whole list, but recently, we realized it also means democratizing the capacity of scaling [making geothermal energy much more widely available on the island of Montreal] which is part and parcel of this model. We get the feeling that if you have actors, like Solon, Co-op Carbone, Co-op Celsius and so on, well you are also creating a structure that is able to scale geothermal energy more easily than by going it piecemeal. (translation, interview with initiator of Celsius project 2021)

7 Ecological community housing with a local desire for geothermal energy The second case presented here is a shared geothermal project in a housing co-operative. The housing co-operative model, and its process of development, provided the collective action space that facilitated the emergence of the geothermal project. We begin by describing the place of housing co-operatives in Quebec and how the project has developed over the years. Then, we will describe the process of the project’s reappropriation which made it possible to implement the geothermal installation in Co-op Le Coteau Vert, and the challenges it has faced since the housing co-operative is inhabited in 2010.

8 Social housing co-operatives as collective spaces of action The movement of housing cooperatives in Quebec gained momentum during the 1970s, fueled by subsidy programs and born out of a strong desire from residents and social economy organizations to improve affordable housing rental supply (Bouchard, 2009). Since housing co-operatives are not

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publicly owned, they are founded as an initiative of citizen groups or local organizations. They are assisted by GRTs (group of technical resources), that act as facilitators with the government (Bouchard and Hudon, 2008) and are mandated to provide support for community and citizen groups in the development of social and affordable housing. The Quebec co-operative housing model makes all residents co-op members. As members, they have shared responsibility and a structure to decide and manage their collective ownership of the coop building and related infrastructure. Members also have to personally engage in renovations and maintenance. The Le Coteau vert housing co-operative and the adjacent Un toit pour tous community housing project are the result of a long process of claiming a site (also in the Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie borough) located near the orange line of Montreal’s subway system. The land was previously occupied by a municipal garage. After searching for a site for a co-operative for several years, the La Petite-Patrie Housing Committee made a request for the site. At the time, there was a signifcant lack of social housing in the borough. Until the early 2000s, the main objective of the project was to build new housing for low-income individuals and families. A collaborative consultation process was set up and it was through a consultation table that representatives of the city, the technical resource group Bâtir son quartier, the architectural frm Oeuf, Énergir (at the time Gaz Métropolitain), citizens, and various community groups came together to set up a community housing project. Supported fnancially by federal, provincial, and municipal levels of government, the project came to fruition in 2006 and two years later, construction of the new buildings began in the existing built environment. Eight new buildings were built around an interior courtyard to create the Le Coteau Vert family housing co-operative which has 95 units and community housing for small households with 60 units in the Un toit pour tous project (see Figure A2.2) (Pearl and Wentz, 2014).

9 Reappropriation of collective spaces of action in the creation of a green co-operative During the 2000s, a new group of citizens with strong environmental values joined the table and led discussions regarding the creation of an ecologically minded co-operative (Le Coteau Vert, 2016). The local community already had intended to create a “green project”, but this citizen group, called Logis vert at the time, pushed to install geothermal energy and fnd the necessary subsidies to make it happen. The members of Logis Vert were therefore included in the project by the founding members, i.e., representatives of the La Petite-Patrie housing committee. There were several people in the group who were very motivated by environmental aspects. So, we said we’ll continue to seek funding for

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Figure A2.2 Interior courtyard of Co-op Le Coteau Vert Photograph by Myriam Proulx (2021).

environmental improvements. Then, I don’t really know how or why, but back then it was like, ‘the thing’ … you know, there were a number of little environmental things, but one big idea was that we wanted a geothermal system. So, we spent several years looking for funding for geothermal energy and a few other things. (translation, interview with initiator of Co-op Le Coteau Vert, 2021) The architectural frm l’Oeuf, who created the project, had participated in the Benny Farm project (also in Montreal) a few years earlier. Benny Farm is a large community housing redevelopment project which had also integrated geothermal energy. This previous project had contributed to promote geothermal energy as a concrete way to include environmental components in

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a housing project via a co-operative model. At that time, the integration of green components seemed to be the logical next step in the development of social housing. In fact, some researchers were interested in the development of renewable energy and energy effciency in social and community housing in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom (McCabe, Pojani, and van Groenou, 2018; Tardy and Lee, 2019). According to an interview with the GRT, the project fts nicely into the organization’s sustainable development objectives. We wanted to be part of sustainable development, and yes, we can we do a bit more in terms of energy savings, in terms of choice of materials … and ensure that our impact, our ecological footprint … at the community housing level, does what can to improve ourselves overall. You know, to have a smaller environmental footprint. (translation, interview with member of GRT Bâtir son quartier 2021) Unlike in the Celsius project, their co-operative structure was already present and supported by a development project. Housing co-ops offer shared costs and responsibilities, shared equipment, and maintenance responsibility that is shared and managed by the co-op’s fnancial fund. Thus, geothermal infrastructure was already fnancially accounted for.

10 Geothermal infrastructure in community housing projects The two main issues in the implementation of geothermal infrastructure in the housing co-operative relate to cost and the complexity of technological maintenance. Costs can be high for social and low-income housing. In the case of the Le Coteau vert co-operative, several technical problems arose from the geothermal system; problems with commissioning equipment, disappointment with the effciency of the system to temper the air in the accommodation, and complications with the design of the system linked to problems with condensation. While the co-operative housing model facilitated the sharing of costs and maintenance decisions, because of the pre-existing shared housing structure and level of member engagement, issues still came up when it came to the integration of energy into shared infrastructure. A particular dynamic was created because the costs are collective and are managed by the co-operative while the economic gains associated with geothermal heating were individual. A geothermal system can greatly reduce heating costs in winter, but these costs come at the expense of resident tenants and not the co-operative. Heating and electrical bills are traditionally paid by the individual, even in housing co-operatives. The cost of geothermal infrastructure and maintenance is included in the co-operative budget as a part of overall maintenance, however. The costs required by the geothermal infrastructure

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therefore confict with the budget available for other repairs or they may even necessitate an increase in rent for residents. So we said OK, we’re still spending a lot of money to maintain this system, but that means that we have heating, which looks to us like it would be free. Except that what happens is that this fnancial burden is being carried by the co-op, it fts into the co-op’s budget instead of being paid by the residents, the resident tenants. So … we had a lot of talk about rent increases recently just to pay for the water infltration, and now there’s a lot of talk about when we compare how much we pay in rent compared to what should be paid for a place without utilities. Because we don’t all have the same heating, you can’t compare them. (translation, interview with initiator of Co-op Le Coteau Vert, 2021) In addition to the issue of maintenance cost, there is also the fact that cooperatives are not used to adjusting rent as a function of differentiated heating costs, complicating the discussion about collective investment and rent increases. Not all apartments have the same heating costs depending on their location in the complex. They have not yet found a model to deal with the sharing of costs and the adjustment of rents, for the monetary savings related to the geothermal infrastructure to be fairly redistributed across the co-operative members. The second issue that came up is related to technical issues. Putting a complex and innovative system in the hands of a community that lacks the knowledge to understand how the system works creates a gap between technology and residents. According to our interviews, we frequently heard that residents had high expectations regarding the air conditioning potential of homes. They did not fully understand that the system works by tempering the air instead of cooling it, meaning residents of the co-op were disappointed with the geothermal system. Likewise, the system is only working today because one highly dedicated resident who decided to take responsibility for the care of the geothermal system, understanding its problems, making minor repairs, researching infrastructure improvement, etc. Despite the fact that the system is owned by the co-operative, one of the learnings of the project is that it remains essential to have technical advisors available. Despite these rather negative aspects of technology, the majority of residents are satisfed and proud to be part of this green co-operative, according to our interviews with initiators of the project. There is still a consensus in the co-operative regarding geothermal infrastructure. The architects and community housing developers that worked on this project, however, as well as other professionals having developed similar projects during the same period in Montreal, concluded that geothermal energy is too complicated for co-operative housing technically speaking (Pearl and Wentz, 2014, interviews). It is also complicated by low support from the government regarding

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the implementation of this type of infrastructure in social and co-operative housing, with only ad hoc subsidies being available.

11 Conclusion This chapter presented two co-operative geothermal projects in Montreal and the collective action spaces from which they materialized. The emergence of these projects cannot be credited to particular incentives by the State. As we have shown, Quebec’s dominant centralized hydroelectric energy system and the limited engagement of local actors in energy affairs is not encouraging to decentralized energy development, especially in urban settings. However, citizen-led projects have emerged. We have explored other factors which helped to understand the particularities of their emergence and trajectory. In both cases, the pre-existing collective spaces played an important role in their development. These spaces paved the way for motivated citizens and residents to come together and establish their own project. Both projects favored a co-operative model and joint management. While the housing co-operative already used this model, the citizen initiative opted for a more fexible solidarity co-operative model. In the case of the Le Coteau vert co-operative, the expectations regarding the development of geothermal energy and other green measures were created by the emergence of a greener community housing development method. In the other case, the alley helped bring citizens together to consider the creation of a new collective project around a favorable material site for the pooling of geothermal wells. While both projects sprang from a citizen initiative, each took a different path related to the level of structure for their collective action spaces, as well as their material territorialization within the city. The housing co-operative is de facto more institutionalized, because of the pre-existing regulations and the structure of the housing co-operatives, as well as the technical and development required for the new housing complex. The Celsius project, despite grants from government and community funds, has remained in citizens hands from the very beginning. Additionally, the challenges of materializing the infrastructure are quite different. One fts into an existing and narrow built environment (back alleys and private gardens), while the housing co-op is a redevelopment project, offering greater fexibility in design and adaptation. Both projects faced signifcant technical and material challenges related to the properties of the land. These challenges demanded extraordinary fexibility and commitment over time and these challenges still remain. However, while neither project appears to be an outstanding success technically or environmentally speaking (in terms of high ecological gain), the residents involved still consider the community component of the project to have made a strong contribution. For the housing co-operative, the project is a source of pride and shows their ecological commitment. While architects

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do not recommend it for future housing developments, for the members of the co-operative, it has enhanced their collective project, but it nevertheless depends on the involvement of skilled members. For Celsius, the initiators have come to see their project as an experimental site for the pooling of shared infrastructure, resources, and knowledge which is part of their broader agenda to enact concrete transition pathways in existing urban built environments. In these green alleys, the current geothermal infrastructure, its scale, and its location changed several times because of issues related to property permit revocability and technical diffculties. However, these adjustments are now interpreted by the actors as part of a transformative pathway. They present their co-operative as a fexible energy community model that can be changed to suit context and constraints, even though the geothermal wells were fnally located on private property instead of public or shared property. In both projects, it seems that the involvement of the local community in all stages of the project enabled it to adapt to the challenges faced and yet still maintain their motivation.

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Coutard, O. and Rutherford, J. (2015). Vers l’essor de Villes « post-Réseaux »: Infrastructures, Innovation Sociotechnique et Transition Urbaine En Europe. In Quand l’innovation Fait La Ville Durable, Joëlle Forest et Abdelillah Hamdouch. Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, pp. 97–118. Debizet, G., Tabourdeau, A., Gauthier, C. and Menanteau, P. (2016). Spatial Processes in Urban Energy Transitions: Considering an Assemblage of Socio-Energetic Nodes. Journal of Cleaner Production, Special Volume: Transitions to Sustainable Consumption and Production in Cities, 134 (October): 330–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.140. Desbiens, C. (2004). Producing North and South: A Political Geography of Hydro Development in Québec. The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe Canadien 48 (2): 101–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0008-3658.2004.00050.x. Dóci, G. and Eleftheria, V. (2015). ‘Let‫׳‬s Do It Ourselves’ Individual Motivations for Investing in Renewables at Community Level. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 49 (September): 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.04.051. Dóci, G., Eleftheria, V. and Petersen, A.C. (2015). Exploring the Transition Potential of Renewable Energy Communities. Futures 66 (February): 85–95. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.futures.2015.01.002. Gregg, J.S., Nyborg, S., Hansen, M., Schwanitz, V.J., Wierling, A., Zeiss, J.P., Delvaux, S., et al. (2020). Collective Action and Social Innovation in the Energy Sector: A Mobilization Model Perspective. Energies 13 (3): 651. https://doi. org/10.3390/en13030651. Hicks, J. and Ison, N. (2018). An Exploration of the Boundaries of ‘Community’ in Community Renewable Energy Projects: Navigating between Motivations and Context. Energy Policy 113 (February): 523–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. enpol.2017.10.031. Hoicka, C.E. and. MacArthur, J.L. (2018). From Tip to Toes: Mapping Energy community Models in Canada and New Zealand. Energy Policy 121 (October): 162–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.06.002. Le Coteau Vert. (2016). Historique. Coop Le Coteau Vert. http://coteauvert.com/ historique/. Lopez, F. (2019). L’ordre électrique: Infrastructures énergétiques et territoires. MétisPresses. vuesDensemble. https://www.metispresses.ch/fr/l-ordre-electrique. MacArthur, J.L. (2017). Trade, Tarsands and Treaties: The Political Economy Context of Energy community in Canada. Sustainability 9 (3): 464. https://doi. org/10.3390/su9030464. McAdam, D. (2003). Beyond Structural Analysis: Toward a More Dynamic Understanding of Social Movements. In Social Movements and Networks. Relational Approaches to Collective Action, edited by Diani, M. and McAdam, D. 281–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCabe, A., Pojani, D. and Broese van Groenou, A. (2018). The Application of Renewable Energy to Social Housing: A Systematic Review. Energy Policy 114 (March): 549–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.12.031. Ministère de l’économie et de l’innovation. (2021). Qu’est-ce qu’une coopérative? Ministère de l’Économie et de l’Innovation. https://www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/ bibliotheques/bref/quest-ce-quune-cooperative/?no_cache=1. Pearl, D. and Wentz, D. (2014). Community-Inspired Housing in Canada. Zurich. https://src.lafargeholcim-foundation.org /dnl/4b638d42-a390 - 492e-bf b323d481dab507/CommunityHousingCanada-lowres.pdf.

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Polletta, F. (2008). Culture and Movements. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 619 (1): 78–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0002716208320042. Raymond, J., Malo, M., Tanguay, D., Grasby, S. and Bakhteya, F. (2015). Direct Utilization of Geothermal Energy from Coast to Coast: A Review of Current Applications and Research in Canada, 10. Regroupement des écoquartiers. (2018). Les programmes locaux d’implantation de ruelles vertes à Montréal, 53. Rezaei, B. and Rosen, M.A. (2012). District Heating and Cooling: Review of Technology and Potential Enhancements. Applied Energy, (1) Green Energy; (2) Special Section from papers presented at the 2nd International Energy 2030 Conference, 93 (May): 2–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.020. Savard, S. (2014). Hydro-Québec et l’État Québécois, 1944–2005 de Stéphane Savard. Septentrion. https://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/hydro-quebec-et-letat-quebecois-1944-2005. Seyfang, G., Hielscher, S., Hargreaves, T., Martiskainen, M. and Smith, A. (2014). A Grassroots Sustainable Energy Niche? Refections on Energy community in the UK. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 13 (December): 21–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2014.04.004. Smith, A., Fressoli, M., Abrol, D., Arond, E. and Ely, A. (2017). Grassroots Innovation Movements. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315697888. Smith, A., Hargreaves, T., Hielscher, S., Martiskainen, M. and Seyfang, G. (2016). Making the Most of Community Energies: Three Perspectives on Grassroots Innovation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 48 (2): 407–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15597908. Solon. (2018). Foire aux questions Celsius. Google Docs. https://drive.google. com/file/d/1Lk3ctBzKFIOeBVdEbzQkUVj3oKxsRLmy/view?usp=sharing& usp=embed_facebook. Solon. (2020). Rapport d’activité. Google Docs. https://drive.google.com/ fle/d/1lbcmwj6gBxYxI40z9cDKM9mb317quOKo/view. Tardy, F. and Lee, B. (2019). Building Related Energy Poverty in Developed Countries – Past, Present and Future from a Canadian Perspective. Energy and Buildings 194 (July): 46–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.04.013. Tozer, L. (2013). Energy community Plans in Canadian Cities: Success and Barriers in Implementation. Local Environment 18 (1): 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354 9839.2012.716406. Van Neste, S., Lessard, G. and Madénian, H. (2019). L’action Des Villes Canadiennes En Matière de Transition Post-Carbone. In Le Fédéralisme Canadien Face Aux Enjeux Environnementaux, Annie Chaloux et Hugo Séguin, 147–62. Presses de l’Université du Québec. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv10qqxz6.15. Walker, G. and Devine-Wright, P. (2008). Community Renewable Energy: What Should It Mean? Energy Policy 36 (2): 497–500. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2007. 10.019.

A.3 Energy communities and commons Rethinking collective action through inhabited spaces Marta Pappalardo 1 Introduction Technical developments and the imperatives linked to the energy transition are giving rise to supply and resource management issues that call into question the current confguration of energy regulation and distribution. In this context, the rise of energy communities, in the form of citizens coming together to share in situ production and consumption of renewable energies, must be examined, not only from a technical or environmental point of view but also above all from a societal and political stance. If energy can – and must – be rethought as a common good, from the point of view of accessibility and distribution as a resource (Joussen, 2019), energy communities can be considered as commons. They could be spaces for politics “in practice”, in which case energy would be the basis of a bottom-up governance, through which the community is established and then sets rules for using and sharing energy. This chapter explores the potential of energy communities to constitute new forms of “commons” in the political sense, as such communities allow for the collective management of a shared resource. Through an ethnography of two participatory housing projects that have initiated electricity collective self-consumption (CSC) operations, the resource management, governance and political confgurations put in place by grassroots energy communities are analysed. The hypothesis is that the analysis of space occupation practices reveals the governance of a shared resource, contributing to a citizen-based politicization of the energy transition. In the frst two sections of this paper, energy communities are analysed through the notion of (urban) commons. Following the presentation of the two case studies and the ethnographic method embodied in space, the results address three factors: resource sharing, the circulation of power and the spatialization of living together. Finally, the potential politicization of energy communities and their role in a territorialized energy transition are discussed.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-6

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2 The commons, a new “instituting praxis”: experiences of citizen re-appropriation of spaces and resources Made up of three main elements, namely, a resource (material or immaterial), a community (commoners) and a practice of collective governance (commoning) (Festa, 2016), commons emerge as spaces of bottom-up construction of politics. When speaking of “commons”, it is essential to note that there are different defnitions in different countries. It should be noted that the concepts of “commons” and “common goods” are often used as synonyms, generally indicating “collectives […] and governance mechanisms […] with very elastic contours” (Kebir et al., 2018: 10–11). In her analysis of traditional rural commons (fsheries, forests, pasture land and irrigation systems), Ostrom (1990) proposes a typology of governance design according to eight principles, relating to the defnition, delimitation and management of the resource, as well as the collective that must ensure its management.1 According to Melville et al. (2017), the three major principles to be considered in the analysis of energy communities as commons are: the possibility of monitoring the consumption of the resource; the application of sanctions following non-compliance with collectively defned rules and the existence of confict resolution mechanisms at the group level. Thus, the analysis of renewable energy production-consumption collectives through the prism of the commons shifts the focus from the resource (energy) to the governance that organizes its sharing (Le Crosnier, 2012). The interpretation of commons in this paper also integrates political sociology theories on the subject and particularly studies on urban commons initiated by the Italian movement of beni comuni. According to these approaches, commons are less objects than practices, and challenge the dominant socio-political system, through political actions “from below” (Hardt and Negri, 2011). These studies are founded on the observation of several grassroots experiences around the world, where political practice goes beyond institutional frameworks. While several analyses move towards an institutionalization of commons (Dardot, 2016), these are embodied in a form of politics “through practices” (Charbonnier and Festa, 2016). The confguration of the commons as “politics through practices” is also strongly linked to (urban) space, as it is occupied, physically and symbolically invested in by individuals as a form of urban and citizen politics (Harvey, 2012). It is no coincidence that new experiences of commons are emerging in cities, particularly through the shared management of resources (heritage, public spaces) by citizens asserting their will to act in and upon space (Fiori and Magnaghi, 2018). In this sense, the political practice of urban commons can be compared to the “right to the city” proposed by Lefebvre (2009), advocating urban production through the political action of each citizen. Analysing energy communities as commons means investigating the dynamics of building collective action through learning processes, governance and the distribution of power within the collective. Energy communities

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 69 may therefore not only be spaces for sharing renewable resources but also places for the emergence of an “instituting praxis” (Dardot and Laval, 2014) on a spatial basis, through the collective governance embodied in inhabited spaces. The notion of “psychosocial individuation” proposed by Simondon (1997) refers to “the dynamic and necessarily collective process by which each person and each group individuates itself in relation to all individuals, in order to create new forms of society” (Fernandez, 2011: 346). This notion can be used to investigate the way in which energy systems and the space in which they are deployed become the basis for the organization of the community, which then moves from an individual dimension to a collective organization. The literature on governmentality, understood as the capacity of actors to give direction to the actions of others,2 shows that the power of community members is not a static entity but is, on the contrary, empirically constructed, according to the representations, skills and spatial practices of individuals. These approaches assist in analysing power asymmetries within groups and the directions taken by groups according to the capacity of members, as individuals, to infuence or “govern” the practices and actions of others (Gordon, 1991). The case studies herein will demonstrate that this capacity to “govern conducts” is exercised not only directly and actively, in the offcial scenes of exchange and governance but also indirectly, through “situated” practices (Haraway, 1988) in the spaces of daily life.3

3 Collective self-consumption of electricity: shared production and consumption at the (micro-)local level CSC4 communities bring together actors who are both producers and consumers of renewable energies (most often photovoltaic (PV) electricity), and must be organized on several levels (Welch and Yates, 2018). CSC of electricity is a regulatory mechanism allowing two or more energy producers to form a “community of self-consumers” to share the consumption of in situ produced energy. CSC of electricity has been regulated by law since 2017 in France and 2018 in Switzerland. The legal texts in both countries regulate CSC operations in a similar way: members wishing to participate in a CSC operation can join together to form an Organizing Moral Person (OMP), the legal entity in charge of the sharing between members of the in situ produced energy. In France, each member must also be connected – through a meter – to the public distribution grid and the OMP is in charge of establishing an energy-sharing ratio between the members. In Switzerland, household meters are not mandatory, and the group has the choice of organizing, or not, the sharing of the in situ produced energy. There are several confgurations of energy communities, regulated by national and supranational directives.5 This research focuses on energy communities initiated and led by citizens, the so-called “ordinary” actors, particularly in participatory housing since the governance and sharing

70 Marta Pappalardo methods of this type of housing particularly facilitate the observation of exchanges related to management of the energy system. In this type of community, the inhabitants are co-opted by their peers, often because of shared values or ecological and political activism.6 Participation in an energy community can thus be a driver of citizen politicization as the need to collectively organize the sharing of energy (and of the spaces involved in consumption practices) leads participants to exercise power at the collective level, take part in decision-making processes and acquire skills and knowledge in energy issues. Acosta et al. (2018) show that the collective decision-making process becomes a determining element for the success of CSC operations, just like the organization of the actors and the materiality of the technical system. They analyse how governance is a central issue in the organization of energy communities, following three variables: the materiality of the technical system (hard variables), the organization of the stakeholders (soft variables) and the choice of decision-making processes (decision-making variables). Throughout the phases of design, implementation and adjustment of their operations, community members also develop skills and set up learning dynamics (communication variables). Energy communities can thus be read as commons in the political sense, as they link the notion of commons, referring to the collective management of a resource, with the idea of a political movement of collective action. Therefore, energy communities are not only spaces for sharing renewable resources but also constitute arenas for the emergence of innovative community political forms through collective governance embodied in inhabited spaces. Such governance translates into action as seen in individual practices, learning dynamics and efforts made by individuals to set up and manage the resource and the collective. The participatory housing model, which operates in a similar way to a common good (Festa et al., 2018), offers an excellent vantage point for observing the sharing of spaces and the local governance set up by collectives. Our ethnographic approach, strongly anchored in space, harnesses the analysis of the discourse and representations of the members of two energy communities in participatory housing, with the observation of consumption and space occupation practices, as well as material and spatial devices.

4 Exploring energy communities through participatory housing: an ethnography of inhabited spaces In French, the term “habitat participatif” (participatory housing) refers to a wide range of housing whose common denominator is that the inhabitants are project leaders (Devaux, 2015). Participatory housing is part of a movement challenging traditional forms of private property and consumerism through grassroots initiatives and the pooling of goods and services (Brusadelli et al., 2016).

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 71 The choice of the two case studies is the result of the collective research approach undertaken by the cross-disciplinary programme “Eco-Sesa Smart Energies in Districts” at Grenoble Alpes University,7 working on energy in Grenoble. Students and researchers investigated CSC from the angle of political and economic regulation, urban planning and the implementation of energy systems. Within the framework of this collective research, CSC projects emerging in France and neighbouring European countries (notably Switzerland, Germany and Italy) between 2015 and 2019 were identifed. These projects were most often initiated by groups of inhabitants or local authorities. Among the housing projects where CSC is currently in operation, two cases have been chosen – one in France, the other in Switzerland – to detect elements of governance going beyond national regulatory frameworks (Pappalardo and Debizet, 2020). The frst case study is a grouped housing project located in a rural commune in the south of France. It was initiated in 2005 by two families who wanted to live together and shared the values of collaborative consumption (Hamari et al., 2016), sociocratic governance and ecological practices. After fnding a plot of municipal land, the two households circulated information on networks specifc to participatory housing and were joined by other families. The group chose a project manager, led the participatory project and the construction, and then, in 2018, moved in. There are 11 dwellings in two buildings, arranged around a communal garden and a set of communal rooms: a large room with a kitchen, two guest bedrooms, a laundry room and DIY workshops. Bicycle parking and a storage room complete the premises, with a total of 200 m2 of communal areas and 807 m2 of private housing. Co-owner families occupy nine of the 11 dwellings, and two are rented to elderly people. The inhabitants have adopted a horizontal functioning, meeting at least once a week to manage the daily issues of the housing. The idea of installing an electricity self-consumption operation came from the two families who started the whole project, as a desire to escape the monopoly of the large energy operators. The system consists of photovoltaic panels connected to the common grid: 96 m2 of panels with 16 kWp nominal power and a forecasted annual production of 80–100 kWh. The PV panels are connected to a community electrical grid that supplies the common rooms and the water heaters of each dwelling (for domestic hot water). In this way, the consumption of the common rooms and that of the domestic hot water are mainly derived from collective self-production. The inhabitants created a “Société Civile Immobilière d’Attribution (SCIA)”,8 functioning as a cooperative for the management of the CSC operation. The second case study is a cooperative housing project built in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2017. The building, composed of 38 housing units, is owned by two housing cooperatives. The dwellings are distributed over fve foors, ranging from two to four rooms. The building also includes a walkable roof and shops on the ground foor (covering approximately 500 m2), with a total surface area of 4000 m2. On the third foor, the common rooms include a

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large laundry room and guest rooms. On the ground foor there is a library, a large communal room with a kitchen and a garden, and lastly the roof is divided between a vegetable garden and relaxation areas. Residents belong to one or the other cooperative and pay a ceiling rent for their apartment. The installed photovoltaic power is close to 30 kWp, the maximum power eligible for a feed-in subsidy, which covers one-third of the cost. After deciding to install a CSC device, some inhabitants created an energy cooperative, which funds the panels and to which all the inhabitants currently pay a bill. Although, unlike in the French case, the law does not oblige individual consumption data to be reported, the Swiss building has individual meters, which are used for billing. In addition to the rent, the inhabitants pay charges which cover, among other items, the consumption of the common rooms. Although CSC is not a founding element of the project, ecological attention – indeed activism – is very strong in both cooperatives. The inhabitants participated actively in the design and the construction of the building and opted for several ecological solutions, such as a water purifcation system with earthworms, joint purchase of green cleaning products and (for one of the two cooperatives) the obligation to give up private cars in favour of car-sharing (Figure A3.1). Through the analysis of the “spatialized” governance in the two communities, this study aims to explore the power dynamics in the energy communities and how these are interwoven with the space inhabited on a daily basis. Thus, the practices of the inhabitants constitute a helpful feld of observation for analysing the construction of political action in CSC

Figure A3.1 Two models of participatory housing (left: France; right: Switzerland) Source: Author (2019).

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 73 communities. Individuals express their agency (Giddens, 1984) not only through their consumption practices but also through their occupation of space in general. Thus, decision-making is no longer the only moment when certain individuals give effective direction to the group. This moment is prolonged and disseminated indirectly in daily practices, in both communal spaces and private dwellings. Practice theory (Dubuisson-Quellier and Plessz, 2013) establishes a strong link between energy consumption and everyday practices. More specifcally, Shove et al. (2012) situate practices at the intersection of three components: the materiality of the technical system, the skills of individuals and the meanings that they attribute to their actions. This study’s approach introduces the spatial variable into the equation: through the physical organization of space, individuals express their ability to decide for themselves on the distribution of energy consumption and exercise power over others. The appropriation of spaces can be achieved through a series of spatial transformations, such as the arrangement of objects or the choice of decoration, and also through a variety of behaviours and symbolic attributions (Segaud, 2007). Our interdisciplinary methodology applies, on the one hand, the narrative and interactionist approach as a means to evaluate individual representations and the dynamics of face-to-face inter-individual exchange between group members (Goffman, 1959). On the other hand, it uses the observation of the practices of occupation and organization of space, such as markings, barriers and layout. The dual approach thus combines an analysis of information transmitted through speech with an ethnography of the inhabited spaces. During surveys in the two housing projects, a protocol providing for two major actions was set up. Firstly, with regard to the ethnographic observation of spaces and practices, observations were conducted in the spaces and through participation in events organized by the inhabitants. The architecture and material organization of the spaces, especially the communal areas, were also observed. Secondly, six long semi-structured interviews were held with the inhabitants of each housing project. These interviews, carried out in the communal areas or in the interlocutors’ homes, allowed access to their discourse about the projects, as well as to their narratives on the functioning of the group and their knowledge of the CSC system. Our survey method was inspired by the narrative methodology (McAlpine, 2016); the inhabitants’ narration of their participation in participatory housing operations provided access to their hierarchy of values and the place occupied by energy issues in the broad dynamics of the organization of individual and collective life.

5 The governance of energy communities: a common embodied in the inhabited space In energy communities, the sharing of resources and spaces is at the heart of group governance. In both case studies, the group was formed around

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the participatory housing project; subsequently, the ecological values and skills of some members led them to set up a CSC operation. In each case, the initiating group was composed of individuals who were interested or experts in energy issues. The inhabitants who accepted the CSC scheme, but who were not its proponents, were motivated more by the possibility of sharing and, above all, managing the habitat (and therefore energy) on a citizen scale.9 The management of the shared resource has become the space for expression of the agency and power of each individual. The ethnography shows that this governance is closely embodied in the inhabited space. The frst group of results shows the dependence of energy-operating rules on the nature of the spaces and practices; governance can be seen to follow the contours of the relationship between the pooling of spaces and the visibility of individual practices. The second section of results demonstrates the dual circulation of power – face-to-face or via spatial practices – through the prism of individuals’ competences. Energy communities, although advocating horizontal functioning, reveal an asymmetrical distribution of power, between “expert” and “lay” individuals, whose dynamic and empirically constructed equilibrium allows the group to make decisions and therefore survive. The third group of results shows how spatial practices are indicative of arrangements specifc to “informal” governance among inhabitants, complementing face-to-face functioning. 5.1 Drawing up rules for the distribution of energy, between pooling and respect for privacy The analysis of the exchanges between the members of the two communities revealed how they drew up the rules for distributing energy. In both housing projects, the CSC system essentially supplies the communal areas: laundry, common rooms, guest rooms and garden. In the French case, CSC also supplies domestic hot water in the dwellings, whereas, in the Swiss housing, production is too low to cover the consumption in private spaces. In this way, the sharing of energy resources is linked to the sharing of communal spaces and particularly to the degree of exposure of individual, and even intimate, practices. The more individual practices are visible and “countable” by the other members of the group, the more explicit the governance will be, and the exchanges will be subject to a mechanism of “justice” among the members. The more the spaces are preserved out of respect for privacy, the more informal the exchanges will be, with the exercise of power being disguised in the spatial practices (Table A3.1).10 The table illustrates the relationship between the sharing of spaces, the individuality of practices and the exercise of social control among group members. The result is an energy governance that adapts to the spaces where consumption practices are deployed.

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 75 Table A3.1 Governance according to the type of space and the level of social control Type of space

Modes of governance and social control

Common room Shared, but Governance is (living, unable to explicit but lack of workshop, attribute metering facilitates storage…) consumption to solidarity in individual use energy sharing Communal Shared but Explicit governance laundry accounting that reveals usage for the use to all and makes of washing each inhabitant machines accountable for their individual practices Guest rooms Shared, but with Explicit governance, individual use through the introduction of an individual contribution by users to the maintenance of the rooms Dwellings Private, the only Individual completely selfgovernance is contained space implicit: the in participatory inhabitants let housing everyone “do what they want at home”

Practices in relation to energy sharing Spaces are used by everyone without measuring individual use Social control leads to adjustments in practices

Private use of the room is protected by individual booking and payment

No social control on consumption practices because of the limited presence of communal production and the importance of privacy

In communal spaces with collective use (common rooms, workshops, etc.), practices cannot be attributed to different individuals, who use these spaces at the same time and together; social control is therefore absent and governance is clear in the distribution of consumption costs equally among members. In communal laundries, the presence of individual practices in a shared space leads to very strong social control among group members. The inhabitants of the French housing project, once settled in their dwellings, decided to monitor each other’s consumption in the laundry room (each person records on a table the day, time and number of washes done) to keep track of the group’s consumption. In discussions about the distribution of consumption in the laundries and other communal areas, it transpired that this monitoring quickly revealed asymmetries. This in turn catalysed a debate about value judgements (the “big” consumers or the “teenagers”, who consume in

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the evening instead of taking advantage of the solar production periods). To avoid any confict, the inhabitants then decided that everyone would pay a symbolic sum for each wash, corresponding to the estimated cost of their consumption. The emphasis on individuality – everyone pays for what they consume – allows the group to be more resilient as it gives everyone the freedom to “do what they want”.11 This social control has led several members to adjust their practices, modifying their use of the collective machines, or choosing alternatives to the communal laundry (paid laundry outside, purchase of an individual machine).12 The inhabitants of the Swiss project decided not to count individual consumption so as to guarantee “justice” for all members. This does not avoid tensions due to the exposure of intimate practices and the sharing of space, but it shifts social control away from clear exchanges on the distribution of consumption costs.13 In the guest rooms, social control over individual practices in both projects led to a system of reservation and payment for each night spent in the room: however, the private nature of the room does not afford the same visibility of intimacy as the laundry rooms, and so leads to fewer adjustments in practices. In all these communal spaces, whether for purposes of individual satisfaction or group solidarity, the group must look into the distribution of visible consumption and fnd solutions. At the same time, practices inside each dwelling are silent, and exchanges around the distribution of this invisible consumption are avoided as much as possible. Observations revealed that inhabitants’ consumption practices in their homes were never openly discussed, but that the subject was discussed informally in brief exchanges and avoiding confict. As regards the consumption of the PV energy in dwellings, in both projects the inhabitants decided to share consumption equally among households. This primordial role of the private dimension is also refected in the residents’ discourse: inhabitants claim to do “what they want” at home. For example, they heat or do not heat according to their needs or savings targets, cook “when they are hungry” and take “long showers”.14 Initiatives, like shifting consumption to solar production rather than drawing from the grid, reaching sobriety or making “eco-gestures”, have limited success in the dwellings. If the pressure of social control is more visible in communal spaces, where practices are visible and individuals are accountable for them, the dwellings escape this control because the inhabitants claim to be protected by their right to privacy. The distribution of consumption costs and the governance of the decision-making process are therefore intrinsically linked to the space where consumption practices take place. The choice of a ratio for the distribution of the CSC costs is thus a multifactorial consideration, bearing in mind the type of space where the practices take place and the objective of energy effciency, without forgetting the group’s need to survive.

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 77 5.2 Distribution of power: an empirically constructed “hybrid forum” The approach used in this study, based on the ethnographic qualitative method, reveals that the functioning of the community is dynamically built following consumption and space occupation practices. The rules of sociocracy, which call for clear, face-to-face negotiations to deal with the various subjects of communal life – including energy sharing – are often replaced by informal arrangements, seeking to respect individual consumption practices and thus guarantee the group’s survival. Even if, in principle, the organization of the commons is based on a horizontal governance, where each member participates on an equal footing, within the energy communities studied, hierarchies that structure power were observed, particularly based on individuals’ knowledge of energy issues. While disparities in the distribution of a supposedly horizontal power are no exception in commons (Juan, 2018), these case studies show a distribution of power that is strongly embodied in the inhabited space. Both groups operate according to the principles of sociocracy (Leafe Christian, 2007), a movement challenging the assumptions of representative democracy. Sociocracy responds to three principles, seeking to guarantee horizontal and egalitarian governance. The frst is operating by “commissions”, i.e., groups dedicated to the different issues of communal life. The second is an organization of the commissions in interlocking circles, where each member belongs to at least two commissions; and the third a process of “decision-making by consent”, which attempts to go beyond the traditional model of majority votes. This horizontality of expression is intended to encourage the emergence of more complex and nuanced proposals, due in particular to the intervention of “lay” individuals, who express themselves outside a consolidated expertise in the subject matter in hand. In this way, different points of view and “use skills” (Hatzfeld, 2011) can have their place, allowing for the creation of a “hybrid forum” (Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe, 2011), conducive to the concretization of the proposal.15 This horizontal functioning is not immune to the formation of asymmetries, particularly when “expert” members propose initiatives that are felt to be far removed from the understanding of “lay” people, who consent without necessarily questioning them. However, apart from the moments of face-to-face exchange, other factors prove to be decisive for the distribution of energy, particularly with regard to consumption practices in the private sphere. Two types of power then emerge: on the one hand, an “active” power, that of the initiators of the CSC operation, who are part of the “energy commission” and have professional expertise or an interest in this domain. This type of power leads individuals to be bearers of actions and initiatives, to raise awareness and even convince others on subjects they consider important. The second type is a power of “resistance”; if a person is not interested

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in an issue or does not want to give in on practices that they consider nonnegotiable, their attitude of resistance to change will have a power over the group that will infuence everyone’s conduct. Ethnographic observations reveal political action through spaces, especially by “lay” individuals who do not possess, or feel they lack, the knowledge and skills to intervene directly in face-to-face exchange during rounds of decision-making by consent. However, these individuals do exercise power, particularly in the way they organize and occupy inhabited spaces. 5.3 At the interface between the private and the shared, the spatialization of living together Both groups, in the two housing projects, have several governance tools at their disposal: spatialized tools (signs, posters), virtual exchanges (e-mail, Internet messaging services on smartphones) and face-to-face exchanges (formal, such as meetings; or informal, such as chatting in the garden or having coffee in each other’s homes). However, observations reveal that this offcial and discursive apparatus is complemented, or even duplicated, by non-verbal communication in the organization of inhabited space. Strategies of non-verbal communication are implemented by inhabitants in different ways. In Switzerland, fowerpots block the passage in front of the bay windows on the adjoining balconies, which are supposed to be accessible to all. In France, shoes next to the front door of the common room indicate the obligation to remove one’s footwear, and DIY tools left in the communal courtyard indicate a request for more involvement in maintenance work (Figure A3.2). In the French laundry room, in addition to the consumption monitoring table, there is a very rigid division of space, where everyone has their own products and their portion of the room and adjacent outdoor space. In the Swiss laundry room, signs ask tenants not to use the dryers at night (Figure A3.3). In both housing projects, the landings and outdoor living areas are used in the same hybrid manner, combining the private and the shared, as many of the residents’ personal belongings are permanently stored on the landings (Figure A3.4). Through their practices of consumption, as well as of occupying and organizing private and communal spaces, the inhabitants multiply channels of communication, widening their feld of action and thus their exercise of power over the other members of the group. In his analysis of the discourses constructed by social groups, Scott (1990) proposes a distinction between the “public” and “hidden” transcript, the former referring to offcial interaction between groups while the latter indicates the internal or disguised political actions of social groups. While exchanges, whether face-to-face or through the offcial channels of sociocracy, fall within the sphere of discursive performance, because they directly or indirectly involve speaking within the collective, the organization of space observed in this research can be compared to the hidden transcript. The latter “does not only

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 79

Figure A3.2 Communicating without words: governance through space practices (left: France; right: Switzerland) Source: Author (2019).

Figure A3.3 Inhabitants’ spatialization of the living together in the laundry rooms (left: France; right: Switzerland) Source: Author (2019).

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Figure A3.4 Inhabitants’ organization of the common landings as an “extension of the home” (left: France; right: Switzerland) Source: Author (2019).

cover words, but is also made up of a whole set of gestures and practices” (p. 28). The practices of space thus participate in the complexifcation of decision-making processes within the group, by acting outside speech and discursive performance. Through the shared practice of space, the members of the collective build a hidden transcript that is a true political action, but disguised and situated. In this way, the governance of the group is reconfgured by space practices, giving use skills political power and legitimacy.

6 Conclusion: energy communities and commons, the political legitimacy of a citizen-based energy transition This chapter has analysed energy communities in participatory housing through the prism of the commons model. The starting point was the rationale that, if renewable energy is a resource, i.e., a common good managed by a community, then energy communities are commons, in other words, spaces for the collective management of this resource. The organization at the micro-local scale, and particularly the principles of trust (Walker et al., 2010) and self-governance (Avelino et al., 2014) enabling collectives to succeed in their energy-sharing operations, are of paramount importance for energy communities beyond the participatory housing model. The governance of energy in shared housing is thus indicative of the potential for the

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 81 politicization of citizens in the wider feld of energy communities (Rumpala, 2013). The research results show that this empowerment at the citizen scale becomes fundamental in the genesis and functioning of citizen-driven energy communities. It challenges national regulations of local energy production and consumption, whose metering mechanisms allow for a (static or dynamic) distribution of consumption costs among members, intended to facilitate the optimization of self-consumption, or even energy sobriety. While investment (both economic and human) in the implementation of CSC citizen operations is relatively high for the members of the groups, these do not calculate the benefts so much in terms of economic return or reduction of global consumption, as in terms of survival of the group and the power over their production and consumption of energy. During the interviews, the participants stated that they had taken part in the operation above all because of a desire for “political” action in energy issues at their level. Mentioning autonomy from the major distribution players, a will to take decisions at the housing level, and the implementation of concrete solutions for energy sobriety through energy sharing, the members of the studied communities affrmed that they were taking part in the energy transition at their own level. This exercise of power at the community level can be compared to political and urban action in areas managed as commons; it involves “visible practices”, in other words, practices “from below” deeply rooted in the urban territory at the micro-local level. Among the forms of political action embodied in space, the practice of commons is asserting itself in several cities around the world as a suitable system for experimenting an alternative political practice. These forms of bottom-up city-making give the actions of city dwellers a political legitimacy in questioning and appropriating the traditional forms of urban production. In this way, it is possible to study daily practices as laboratories producing not only a city but also political action. Inhabited spaces thus become “public spaces” in the sense used by Habermas (1962), in other words, spaces for the exercise of democracy in innovative forms. The relationship between existing energy communities and the regulations on energy sharing at the local level also brings out refections on the duality between “legal” and “legitimate”. Through their actions, members of energy communities (especially in pioneer operations) have organized legitimate energy sharing, albeit at the limits of legality. For example, the French energy community was created before the country’s 2017 regulations and waged a battle with the energy distributor for the implementation of an independent private network, reserved for inhabitants, with a single meter for the whole community. The solution fnally obtained (a private network with individual meters for each inhabitant, attached to the general public grid) is indicative of the energy distributor’s adaptation to hybrid solutions supporting this desire for autonomy while remaining within the limits of French law. This citizen political action “in practice”, which is close to the

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“political society” model proposed by Chatterjee (2004), is based on solving everyday problems and asserting citizen action “from below”, even in the absence of – or outside – a regulatory framework. The politics embodied in practices can also be related to the forms of “street politics” observed by Bayat in Middle Eastern cities (2010), where “ordinary” city dwellers deploy skills (Berry-Chikhaoui and Deboulet, 2000) that enable them not only to survive, but moreover to create spaces for identity expression, belonging and action. The knowledge produced by these ordinary practices has contributed to the establishment of “use skills” (Hatzfeld, cit.), which can be translated into situated political action. Beyond the scale of the collective, citizen energy communities appear to be the bearers of a territorialization of inhabited spaces (in the wider sense) linked to renewable energy production-consumption practices. Through “the material, symbolic and organizational control of space” (Turco, 2010), in addition to setting up new modalities of energy production-consumption and societal organization, energy communities create new forms of territory. The present research on energy communities in participatory housing explores the governance of energy at the micro-local level and its role in the transcaling of energy management. The analysis of practices and governance embedded in the inhabited spaces reveal power dynamics “from below”, which play a role in the organization of local energy intermediation (Tabourdeau and Debizet, 2017). Said dynamics even build the foundations of an “ordinary urban production” (Aubert and Souami, 2021) through the empowerment of actors at the inhabited scale. In this sense, the energy community as a common in the inhabited space seemingly constitutes the micro-local level of governance, allowing citizens to engage politically through the practices of their inhabited spaces. Energy communities, organized according to the principles of commons, can thus be studied as drivers of reterritorialization (Kebir et al., cit.) participating in the local intermediation of energy. Not only do they allow production-consumption mechanisms for renewable energy resources to be rethought and reorganized but they also create spaces for the governance and reappropriation of territories by local collectives on the basis of geographical proximity. In the inhabited space, energy communities can be analysed as spaces for the emergence of new forms of citizenship in the context of a socio-ecological transition, reinterpreting the role of citizens in the redistribution and management of natural and technical resources in territories.

Acknowledgements This work has been supported by the French Agency for Ecological Transition (APRED2017 / RETHINE), the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region (Pack Ambition 2017 / OREBE) and the Cross-Disciplinary Program Eco-SESA Smart Energies in Buildings receiving funds from the French National

Rethinking energy communities through inhabited spaces 83 Research Agency in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02).

Notes 1 Eight principles of design the governance of commons (E. Ostrom, 1990, updated by Cox et al., 2010): 1. Clearly defned user boundaries and clear boundaries of resource system; 2. Congruence with local conditions and proportionate benefts of appropriation and provision inputs; 3. Collective-choice arrangements: most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying them; 4. Monitoring users and resource; 5. Graduated sanctions; 6. Confict-resolution mechanisms; 7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize; 8. Nested enterprises: appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, confict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises. (Melville et al., 2017) 2 Research on governmentality draws on Foucault’s analysis of power, which uses this term to indicate both the capacity to exercise power over others and dominate through the institutionalization of that power (Laborier, 2014), and more specifcally: “the set of procedures and means deployed by governing groups and organizations to ensure in a given society the regulation of the conduct of the lives of others” (Haroche, 1993: 54). 3 We employ the adjective “situated” in a twofold sense: frst, as a localized practice that can be extended to a given spatio-temporal confguration. Secondly, we draw inspiration from Haraway’s work on “situated knowledge” to qualify these practices and know-how from a “partial” perspective of the use of skills, as opposed to an expert and dominant vision of space occupation and energy effciency. 4 In French: autoconsommation collective. 5 Regulatory frameworks in European Union Member States recognize energy communities within two types of energy-sharing models: “renewable energy communities” in the Renewable Energy Directive of 2018, and “citizen energy communities” in the Electricity Market Directive of 2019 (Frieden et al., 2019). 6 Communication titled “Collective self-consumption patterns in European Countries: potentialities and limits”, presented by G. Wallenborn at the EcoSESA Workshop “Internet of Energy for district communities”, 03/06/2019, Global Challenges Science Week, Grenoble. 7 https://ecosesa.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/. 8 The purpose of the non-trading property company is to build or buy buildings, to divide them into fractions, to allocate them to the different partners in bare ownership, in use or in full ownership. It also includes the management and maintenance of the real estate before the division operation. The partners of the non-trading property company contribute to the management of the company by taking part in the decisions during the general assemblies (AG). Each associate has a voting right proportional to his share defned in the articles of association of the nontrading property company. Source: https://www.legalstart.fr/fches-pratiques/ societe-civile-immobiliere/sci-attribution/; https://www.legalplace.fr/guides/sciattribution/ [accessed on 21/12/2021]. 9 Interview with F., 2019 (Switzerland). 10 A more extensive analysis of the relationship between the nature of space and energy consumption “countability” has been carried out in a previous publication (Pappalardo and Debizet, 2020).

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Marta Pappalardo Interview with D., 2019 (France). Interview with P., 2019 (France). Interview with D., 2019 (Switzerland). Interview with P., 2019 (France). The notion of “hybrid forum”, proposed by Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe (2011), allows for an analysis of emergence of innovations, resulting from the joint contribution of professionals linked to economic and institutional actors (the “experts”), and activists or users driven by more general interests (the “laypeople”), in other words a heterogeneity of expertise.

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Leafe Christian D. (2007). How to research, visit, evaluate, and join the ecovillage or sustainable community of your dreams. Gabriola: New Society Publishers. Lefebvre H. (2009). Le droit à la ville. Paris: Economica [1968]. McAlpine L. (2016). Why might you use narrative methodology? A story about narrative. Eesti Haridusteaduste Ajakiri. 4/1, 32–57. http://eha.ut.ee/wp-content/ uploads/2016/04/6_02b_alpine.pdf. Melville E., Christie I., Burningham K., Waya C. and Hampshire P. (2017). The electric commons: A qualitative study of community accountability. Energy Policy, 106, 12–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.035. Ostrom E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pappalardo M. and Debizet G. (2020). Understanding the governance of innovative energy sharing in multi-dwelling buildings through a spatial analysis of consumption practices, Global Transitions, 2, 221–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. glt.2020.09.001. Rumpala Y. (2013) Formes alternatives de production énergétique et reconfgurations politiques. La sociologie des énergies alternatives comme étude des potentialités de réorganisation du collectif. Flux, 92, 47–61. https://www.cairn.info/ revue-fux1-2013-2-page-47.htm. Scott J. C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Segaud M. (2007). Anthropologie de l’espace: habiter, fonder, distribuer, transformer. Paris: Armand Colin. Shove E., Pantzar M. and Watson M. (2012). The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and how it Changes. London: Sage. Simondon G. (1997). L’Individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. Paris: Milon. Tabourdeau A. and Debizet G. (2017). Concilier ressources in situ et grands réseaux: une lecture des proximités par la notion de nœud socio-énergétique, Flux, 3–4, 109–110, 87–101. https://www.cairn.info/revue-fux-2017-3-page-87.htm. Turco A. (2010). Confgurazioni della territorialità. Milan: Franco Angeli. Walker G., Devine-Wright P., Hunter S., High H. and Evans B. (2010) Trust and community: Exploring the meanings, contexts and dynamics of community renewable energy. Energy Policy, 38/6, 2655–2663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.05.055. Welch D. and Yates L. (2018). The practices of collective action: Practice theory, sustainability transitions and social change. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 48/3, 288–305. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12168.

A.4 Anticipating energy communities in urban projects Challenges and limits Inès Ramirez-Cobo, Gilles Debizet and Silvère Tribout 1 Introduction On the scale of blocks or districts, urban projects introduce or transform equipment, streets and buildings as well as systems distributing energy to the interior of homes and offces. Short-term economic optimisation, the minimisation of technical risks, and habitus most often lead urban developers to resort to exogenous energy sources (which are mostly of fossil or fssile origin) transiting through the indispensable electricity network or through the extension of the gas network in the district, rather than introducing renewable energy production facilities. For the past 20 years, ecodistrict or econeighbourhood approaches have aimed to produce energy in situ for local consumption (Hodson, Marvin and Bulkeley, 2013; Di Lucia and Ericsson, 2014), sometimes by mobilising the notion of energy community. These approaches require energy intermediaries linking in situ energy resources, buildings and large networks capable of organising transactions between the corresponding actors (Debizet and Tabourdeau, 2018). These intermediaries – whether or not they recognise themselves as the hub of a local energy community – organise exchanges relating to the energy produced in situ; they have a variety of status (owners’ or residents’ cooperatives, social landlords, municipalities, public or private network operators, digital companies, etc.) (Sebi and Vernay, 2020). They take over from the urban developers once the public spaces and buildings have been delivered to their owners, managers and occupants. This chapter focuses on the design phase of the urban project. Authors consider the urban project as a strategic, pragmatic and contextual process of intentional urban making which results, among other things, in a work of spatial formalisation (Devisme, 2013) of which streets, public spaces and buildings are the main material constituents. The setting of energy production objectives requires co-elaboration between energy system designers and urban designers, architects and landscape architects, as well as negotiations between the district energy system developer and the urban developer. These actors evolve in different socio-technical regimes (Geels and Schot, 2007) characterised by specifc rules and the organisation of programming

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-7

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and design work. The coexistence of these regimes can lead to friction, circumvention and deviation from the rules of each one (Coenen, Benneworth and Truffer, 2012; Debizet et al., 2016), and also to the establishment of new power relations in the decision-making processes (Murphy, 2015). The multiplicity of stakeholders involved in urban transformation is still little studied in Sustainability Transition Studies (Musiolik et al., 2012; Köhler et al., 2017). This chapter assumes that professionals working in urban planning, architecture and landscaping landscape constitute a community of practice, in other words, that they share values, know-how and interpersonal skills. The same is true of specialists in electrical, thermal and fuel systems. These two communities of practice in the sense of Wenger (1998), which will be called urbanistic and energy communities, differ very signifcantly (Fenker, 2015; Grudet, Macaire and Roudil, 2017). The involvement of two such distant communities in the same project leads to misunderstandings and uncertainties, and requires collaboration around intermediate objects (Jeantet, 1998; Vinck, 2009) beyond professional boundaries (Sorrel, 2015). The authors assume that this leads to a shift in decision-making power compared to the usual, settled situations where energy supply is exogenous. The authors focus on the analysis of study and design documents and the observation of collaborative scenes in which the emerging relationships between city and energy decision-makers, urbanistic designers and energy designers are played out. The authors pay particular attention to informality to reveal deregulated forms of agency (McFarlane, 2012).

2 Material and methodology 2.1 Case studies The authors selected two urban projects which aim to produce in situ and share renewable energy: the BlueFactory technology park (Freiburg, Switzerland) and the Eco-Hameau1 des Granges (La Motte Servolex, France). The stakeholders involved in these projects are testing new technical-energy solutions within the urban space to be built. These urban projects, described below, bear witness to contemporary dynamics of diversifcation among the panel of stakeholders participating in the design (Arab, Ozdirlik and Vivant, 2016) as well as processes of experimentation of devices (material and immaterial) and learning along the way (Godier and Wazel, 2012; Tribout, 2018). Assuming that these approaches are not neutral and that they infuence the very defnition of the project’s objectives (Vigano, 2014), the analysis of these processes, combining urban and energy design, allows us to identify the conditions for the implementation of the use and sharing of an in situ energy resource.

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2.2 Selection criteria of the two cases The two selected projects combine several characteristics: 1 A high level of ambition in terms of in situ renewable energy production and sharing (iREPS). 2 A diversity of exploitable energy resources within the project area. 3 The state of being in development at the time of the survey. The authors were thus able to observe the decisions relating both to build forms and to energy devices and, in a transversal manner, the interaction between the two communities of practice. 2.2.1 BlueFactory – Freiburg – Switzerland Following the closure in 2010 of the Cardinal brewery, which had been located in the area since the second half of the nineteenth century, in 2011 the cantonal and municipal authorities of Freiburg launched a public competition to defne the layout of a new innovation district. The “First Zero Carbon Technology Park in Switzerland” will host development companies, business incubators, various tertiary functions, as well as inhabitants. The initial brief forecasted hydro-electric and photovoltaic (PV) production as well as a thermal energy plant through a variety of in situ resources both managed at the district scale (Table A4.1). In 2009, the canton of Freiburg launched an energy strategy for the year 2100 with the aim of reducing its dependence on foreign energy supplies and gradually abandoning fossil fuels. Called the “2,000-watt society”,2 this approach aims to reduce the consumption of energy per capita, among other things, through the increasing use of renewable energy and the exploitation of local resources. This policy emphasises the organisation of the built environment as a key element in achieving the energy objectives.3 Launched in 2011, the BlueFactory project (Figure A4.1) is part of this energy policy.

Figure A4.1 Two versions of BlueFactory masterplan: Steambot (2013) and PAC (2017)

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2.2.2 Eco-Hameau des Granges – La Motte-Servolex – France The Eco-Hameau des Granges project is located on a former quarry site (17 ha) acquired by the commune of La Motte-Servolex. Essentially residential (560 housing units planned), this urban project was part of a larger development project “Triangle Sud”, carried out since 2005 by Métropole Savoie and then by the municipality of La Motte-Servolex. “Triangle Sud” aimed to densify the northern edge of the Chambéry urban area as far as Lake Bourget, passing through the Savoie-Technolac business park (Figure A4.2). This vast project included a heating network taking calories (and frigories in summer) to heat/cool the existing buildings and the future district of the Eco-Hameau des Granges (Table A4.1). A study completed in 2016 assesses the feasibility and suitability of on-site renewable resources (solar, wood, geothermal, wind, methanisation and Lake Bourget aquathermal) compared with a conventional and exogenous gas and electricity supply. The BlueFactory project was analysed in a monograph published in the French-language journal Espaces et Sociétés (Ramirez, Tribout and Debizet, 2021), the main elements of which are reproduced herein. They highlight the spatio-material dependencies between urban and energy aims and also the disjunction between the urbanistic and energy design processes. The

Figure A4.2 Masterplan (right) and location of Eco-Hameau des Granges within Triangle Sud area (left) (Source: CPAUPE, Town hall of La Motte-Servolex).

BlueFactory SA Urban developer eGroupe E Thermal distribution system operator of Freiburg City

Local governments (City, Metropolitan Planning Agency) Urban developer (SPL de la Savoie) Gas distribution system operator (GRDF)4

Eco-hameau des Granges (La Motte-Servolex, France)

Initiator Carrier

Actors

BlueFACTORY (Freiburg, Suisse)

Case study

Experts (architects, ecology and energy consultants, lawyers) Urban and landscape designers Designers hired by housing and realestate developers

Experts (planners, landscape architects, energy consultants) Urban and landscape designers Energy system designers

Consultants and designers

Possible photovoltaic production to be implemented committed by property developers or -later – by inhabitants at the building scale Exogenous gas supply following the extension of the gas distribution network

Photovoltaic production at the building scale. Management to be def ned by property developers Connection to the metropolitan heating network that is mainly supplied by regional woodfuel

Hydro-electric and photovoltaic production and management at the district scale Various thermal productions and management at the district Photovoltaic production and management at the building scale Connection to a forthcoming heating network based on (Bourget Lake) aquathermal recovery

Energy production actually launched

Energy production initially scheduled

Table A4.1 Summary of actors and energy production facilities, initially scheduled and actually launched

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subsequent analysis of the second urban project, Eco-Hameau des Granges, refnes the hypotheses outlined in the BlueFactory monograph: the weak integration of urban and energy design processes and the preponderant weight of a usual distribution network operator in the choice of energy resources used. 2.3 Data analyses Over a two-year period, the authors collected technical, regulatory and graphic documents of urban development and energy projects, and conducted a survey based on semi-structured interviews with urban developers (two or three interviews for each project), architects and energy designers (two interviews for each project) and several developers’ assistants (two interviews for each project), dealing with environmental and energy issues. They paid attention to controversies and key moments in both urbanistic and energy design and the ways in which these are interlinked. For this purpose, the authors set up the same protocol for each category of stakeholder identifed. This allowed for the precise identifcation of their roles, motivations and objectives in the project, as well as the obstacles to achieving them. Priority was given to individual interviews although two meetings (one for each project), at the heart of the decisions structuring the articulation of urbanistic and energy objectives, were observed and documented. The authors distinguish three roles in relation to the iREPS project (Table A4.1): • • •

Initiator: entity or set of entities at the origin of the iREPS project within the urban project; this entity launched the project without necessarily carrying it through to completion. Carrier: entity or set of entities which develop, carry out or implement the iREPS devices within the urban project. Consultants and designers: entities which contribute to the urban project through their specifc skills or which support the project leaders (and sometimes the initiators) in its design.

3 Spatial and processual analysis of urbanistic and energy designs 3.1 Interdependencies between urbanistic and energy objects as a starting point In 2015, the urban developer drew up the BlueFactory cantonal allocation plan (Plan d’Affectation Cantonal (PAC)). Designed by a consortium of consultancy frms (in urban planning, architecture, landscaping, mobility and the environment), it defnes the buildings to be preserved (for reasons of heritage), the areas reserved for public spaces, as well as the footprints of

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the new buildings and related foor areas; the plan was validated by the city and the canton in 2017. The energy facilities were only vaguely defned: the master plan simply quoted the reservation of an area of 3,000 square metres for “developing a possible deep geothermal energy project” by 2025. Drawn up between mid-2018 and mid-2019, a document called the “Energy Concept” defnes the opportunities offered by the site and the master plan in terms of on-the-spot production and consumption of renewable energy. Six types of resources were identifed: solar energy, hydro-electricity, hydrothermal energy, geothermal energy, biomass and thermal waste. Among these, only biomass (to be supplied by the metropolitan heating network “FriCAD”) and one water source are located outside the spatial perimeter of the urban project (Ramirez, Tribout and Debizet, 2021). The authors have drawn the buildings scheduled by the master plan in frst diagram (Figure A4.3), and the energy devices (production and distribution) scheduled in the “Energy Concept” document in second diagram (Figure A4.4). These 3D representations reveal incompatibilities between the location of buildings resulting from the urbanistic design and the location of material objects resulting from the energy design. Some examples to illustrate this are: – the location of solar panels (b) on heritage buildings (10, 11, 13 and 14). – the solar masking of the high-rise tower (3) at the south of the perimeter on adjacent buildings (b) Conversely, synergies can exist between urban objects and energy objects. An example is the icon of the old brewery, the silo (13), which can fulfl the function of thermal water storage and cover heating needs at a lower installation cost while preserving the heritage dimension of the structure. It should be noted that synergies are not necessarily reciprocal: the energy concept does not justify the conservation of the silo, an emblematic building of industrial heritage. Finally, there are also situations of simple compatibility, meaning without one object supporting the relevance of another. For example, the existence of a district heating network is compatible with the existence of the roads and public spaces which will cover the underground pipes of the heating network. The road network has an infuence on the location of the pipes but not on its economy or existence. In contrast to situations of incompatibility, synergy and simple compatibility involve more than just material aspects: for example, a subjacent economic rationale can lead to synergy. Similarly, the discursive dimension of the urban project can lead to synergies being emphasised or obscured. As a result, spatial dependencies are likely to be the subject of tensions between energy and urbanistic conceptions. They could re-open debate on the objectives of the urban project.

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Figure A4.3 3D perspective of BlueFactory project according to the Master Plan (Drawing by Ramirez-Cobo I.).

3.2 BlueFactory: from iREPS aim to the choice of exogenous supply Design studies for an urban project take place over several years, from the initial intentions of the urban developer and stakeholders to the defnition of the forms and location of the future material objects of the districts (buildings, public spaces, networks, etc.). The timeline below highlights three phases: (1) project emergence, identifcation of needs and diagnosis of a situation that the actors seek to improve; (2) programming, involving the actors supposed to accept the choices made (such as political actors and neighbourhood residents) and (3) detailed design, referring to that of material objects. For each phase, the authors have distinguished between energy (top) and urbanistic (bottom) and briefy described a document produced or decision taken (Figure A4.5). In 2013, two years after the launch of the BlueFactory project, a master plan called “Steamboat” (see Figure A4.1) was published but was considered to be ill-suited to the uncertainties of the real-estate programme. In 2015, the urban developer decided to redefne the project objectives. Two years later, both the city and the canton validated a new master plan that became the offcial Plan d’Affectation Cantonal (PAC, see above). In parallel, a temporary experimental building was constructed in 2015: the Halle Bleue (3,000 m2, equipped with 1,800 m2 of PV panels installed on the roof and façade), which houses scientifc and technological activities.

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Figure A4.4 3D perspective of BlueFactory project according to the “Energy Concept” document (Drawing by Ramirez-Cobo I.).

In 2018, several workshops focused on the integration of energy objectives into the spaces and volumes defned by the new master plan. They gathered the advisors of the urban developer, representatives of the heat and the electricity networks, and an academic, but not the designers of the master plan. Between mid-2018 and mid-2019, the opportunities for in situ renewable energy production (see above), offered by the site and the urban and architectural forms of the master plan, were explored. The discussions focused on environmental, economic and morphological issues: the degree of non-renewable primary energy consumption, greenhouse gas emission rate, purchase of green electricity, investment cost for the heat (and cooling) network, surface requirements for PV installation and the PV potential per building in 2040. During the discussions, several scenarios were studied. They were distinguished by the nature of the energy sources used, the degree of mutualisation of energy production systems between buildings and the rate of production within the district itself. Each scenario specifed the energy extraction, storage and distribution facilities. While a scenario based on the district’s energy resources seemed to be the consensus in November 2018, the city council announced a different choice a few months later: the connection of all the buildings to the metropolitan heating network (FriCAD).

2011

Closing of Cardinal Brewery

URBAN PLANNING

2010

EMERGENCE

Urban objectives “District of Innovation”

PROGRAMMING

2012

ENERGY PLANNING

2014

Urban Design 1

URBAN DESIGN 1

2013

Figure A4.5 Chronology of Bluefactory project

URBAN PROCESS

ENERGY PROCESS

Energy objectives “1st Zero Carbon Technology Park”

Cancellation Urban Design 1

2015

Experimental building operation of in-situ production and consumption of renewable energy (iREPS) (inside the perimeter)

2017

Urban Design 2 New flexible urban plan

URBAN DESIGN 2

2016

Studies of iREPS / exogenous supply

Research of investors

2018

ENERGY DESIGN

2020

FINAL CHOICE ENERGY PROJET

PV solar production at the initiative of building developers

Gas network instead of iREPS network

Allocation of plots to building developers

2040 ECO-DISTRICT REALIZATION

1st architectural realizations

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

2019

Possible iREPS at the initiative of public urban developers

4 energy scenarios

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2012

Studies Environmental approaches for urban project

URBAN PLANNING

2011

2014

PUBLIC CONSULTATION

2013

EMERGENCE METROPOLITAIN ENERGY PROJET

Studies In-situ production and consumption of renewable energy (iREPS) / exogenous supply

2015

Figure A4.6 Chronology of Eco-Hameau des Granges

URBAN PROCESS

ENERGY PROCESS

Metropolitan plan Introduction of energy issues

Urban Design 1

PROGRAMMING

2016

ENERGY DISTRICT DESIGN 1

Design brief 1 Connection to a future local heating network

2017

Urban Design 2 Eco-district adaptation

URBAN DESIGN

2018

ENERGY DISTRICT DESIGN 2

Design brief 2 - Possible connection to a future local heating network - Thermal (DHW) and PV solar production

2020

2021

Allocation of plots to building developers

Building permission

FINAL CHOICE ENERGY PROJET

? ECO-DISTRICT REALIZATION

Possible iREPS at the initiative of building developers

Gas network instead of local heating network

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN Tendering for allocation of plots

2019

The city launches an experimental operation of iREPS (outside the perimeter)

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In addition, PV panels would provide part of the buildings’ electricity consumption. However, this scenario does not exclude the in situ production of heat by geothermal energy in a second phase. 3.3 Lessons from the BlueFactory project The analysis confrms the hypothesis of very different communities of practice between the professions of urban planning, architecture and landscaping, and that of energy system designers, whether thermal or electrical. The contributions of all these professionals are made in the form of studies and the drafting of documents specifc to each of them. As is often the case in urban projects, design is a sequential process in which the moments of synthesis and discussion between urbanistic and energy expertise are few and far between (Debizet and Henry, 2009). While some synergies between the urban and energy objects have been identifed, the authors wonder where and when spatial incompatibilities have been raised and arbitrated. The discrepancy between the iREPS objective and the main (although not exclusive) recourse to exogenous supply is all the more questionable as the decision to connect to the city’s heating network seems to have been taken late, or at least imposed late on the urban developer’s team. The authors wonder whether the technical and economic studies that marked the long design process hid the issues of the ownership of the energy production facilities and the management of distribution from the fnal consumers. This could explain why the spatial incompatibilities noted by the authors did not give rise to confict, since the energy consultants in the workshops were there as experts rather than economic operators. The economic rationale and the territoriality of the metropolitan heating network led the operator of this network to favour large heat production units, on the scale of the metropolis, rather than the multiplicity of in situ resources envisaged by the experts and the urban project developer. Is this pattern specifc to the BlueFactory project? Can it also be observed in the Eco-Hameau des Granges project? 3.4 Eco-Hameau des Granges: iREPS challenged by urbanistic design and network management Refections on the future Eco-Hameau des Granges began in 2005 as part of the preparation of the Schéma de Cohérence Territorial (SCoT) of the Chambery metropolitan area, and the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU) of the commune of La Motte-Servolex.5 The SCoT provided for the use of water from the Bourget Lake to heat and cool buildings in neighbouring areas, including the Eco-Hameau des Granges. The PLU authorised the urbanisation of the former Granges quarry, but the plan was modifed several times between 2005 and 2013 following public consultation processes. These touched on the preservation of natural areas and biodiversity, encouragement of the

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use of soft modes of transport and limitation of the visual impact of cars on public spaces, among others. The energy objectives remained limited to the “bioclimatic” prescription for future buildings.6 As of 2014, the energy objectives began to take shape following the completion of a renewable energy supply study. Commissioned by the municipality of La Motte-Servolex and carried out by an energy engineering frm, the study proposed setting a minimum threshold of 50% renewable energy in residential buildings. Rather than storage (which is more expensive), it recommended injecting surpluses into the heat network. The detailed specifcations prior to the land allocation procedure to real-estate developers in 2017 confrmed the connection to the Bourget Lake heating network (Figure A4.7) and set a surface area of 840 m2 of thermal solar panels in the Eco-Hameau, supplemented by 350 m2 of PV panels. Specifc sub-stations for each building would be connected to the heating network and would raise the temperature using heat pumps to cover the domestic hot water and heating needs of the housing. The diffculties in implementing this hybrid system became apparent when the specifcations were refned in 2018 by a new team of architects, urban planners and landscapers who had been asked by the municipality to aim for the “EcoQuartier” label (issued by the French Ministry of Housing). This team pointed out the steep topography of the site and the low level of sunlight, which limited a bioclimatic design of the buildings. Without ruling out connection to the future Lac du Bourget heating network, the team favoured a building scale for the installation of PV panels (covering at least 30% of needs) and solar thermal panels for domestic hot water (optional).

Figure A4.7 Connection of Eco-Hameau des Granges to the future Bourget Lake heating network (Source: CPAUPE, 2017).

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Selected in 2019 by the city council and the urban developer following an architectural competition, the social housing companies and real-estate developers with their architects focused on adapting to topographical constraints, as well as preserving existing biodiversity and offsetting environmental impact in collective open spaces. For heating, they expressed their preference for an exogenous gas supply, which was expected to become biogas in the long term. The urban developer and the city council gave up on the Bourget Lake heating network for two main reasons. Firstly, Bourget Lake heating network (iREPS initially planned solution) would be built much later than the buildings would be put into service, and, secondly, its technical and commercial complexity raised questions about proftability and ability to meet the district’s heating needs. The various property developers also expressed their preference for gas supply by the traditional distributor. The iREPS solution was thus not imposed on the property developers, although future inhabitants of the district would have the possibility of installing PV panels on expressly reserved roof surfaces. It should be noted that the municipality of La Motte-Servolex installed a PV plant on municipal buildings in 2019. The aim was to test collective self-consumption (CSC) of electricity as a way to learn and support groups of residents, particularly those in the Granges eco-hamlet. 3.5 Lessons from the Eco-Hameau des Granges project The analyses of the Eco-Hameau confrm the conclusions reached for BlueFactory: the design of urban and energy projects requires a stronger spatio-material and organisational coordination between urbanistic and energy aims to achieve the iREPS solutions. Thus, although the programmatic, architectural and environmental objectives of the Eco-Hameau are gradually taking shape, analyses reveal the gradual abandonment of iREPS objectives. In concrete terms, the connection to Bourget Lake heating network, supplying heating and cooling within the district, will not be made. Similarly, the solar electric production in the heart of the district has been signifcantly reduced from 50% to 30% of the electricity needs. Although the prescriptive documents for the Eco-Hameau (the two consecutive CPAUPE)7 included the energy studies, they did not induce the urban developer to look for a potential energy operator. The second CPAUPE did not carry any particular interest for iREPS, focusing more on topographic questions and protection of biodiversity. Moreover, the decisions on the energy systems to be put in place came after other structuring decisions that had a greater impact on the urban project, such as the fnal confguration of the allotments and the transfer of the land to property developers. The energy dimension was considered after the urbanistic design process, and was then conditioned by the weight of the property developers and the gas distribution network operator, who were together able to implement a well-regulated, traditional solution, compatible with the land allotment.

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4 Conclusion This analysis shows how the urban project tests the objective of in situ production and consumption of renewable energy (iREPS). Spatial and material incompatibilities between the energy and urbanistic designs weaken the production of renewable energy but do not seem to have challenged the urban design. However, these incompatibilities alone do not explain the abandonment of the iREPS objectives at the district level. In both cases, the socio-technical solution chosen is that of a classic energy network operator already operating on the local territory: in Freiburg, the Fricad heating network controlled by the local and cantonal public authorities; in La Motte-Servolex, the national semi-public company, the quasimonopolistic operator of the gas distribution network in France. In both cases, the energy supply will be mostly exogenous. Beyond the interdependence between these companies and the local authorities (beyond the scope of this paper), the major advantage of these network operators lies in the economic model they support for the long-term management of the energy network to be deployed within the perimeter of the urban project. While calling into question the objective of in situ production, the economic models of incumbent distribution network operators present important qualities for the decision-makers of an urban project. Firstly, said operators fund and implement the network infrastructures. Secondly, they are controlled (even if part of their shareholding is not public) by public authorities and therefore have the legitimacy to act. Thirdly, their role as intermediary between production and consumption is regulated and has been tried and tested for a long time. Choosing these operators spares the decision-makers of an urban project the choice and establishment of an alternative contractual model for the project. Finally, these operators emphasise the inclusion of renewable (relatively local) energy in their energy mix: in terms of communication this argument narrows the gap with the initially announced objectives. Furthermore, recourse to exogenous energies removes the last spatiomaterial incompatibilities between the urbanistic and energy designs. In other words, recourse to such network operators maintains the urbanistic choices as well as the process of allocating plots to real property developers. The choice, by default, of an incumbent network operator limits slippage in terms of delivery time. The authors consider such a decision, based on the gradual reduction of uncertainties, as one of the main issues of urban project management. It therefore seems necessary to establish the nature and status of the energy intermediary in the sense of Debizet and Tabourdeau (2018) between in situ production and the energy supply of buildings before initiating the allotment of the plots of land. Had this happened, the specifc rationale of the energy intermediary would probably have been better known and could have been considered in the urbanistic specifcations. The authors assume that certain bargains would have called into question some urbanistic choices as well as architectural and landscape outlines.

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In Freiburg as in La Motte-Servolex, the future existence of energy communities on the scale of buildings or even the district will remain possible, but with reduced power and volumes consumed on site compared to what they could have been if the energy intermediary between in situ production and consumption had been chosen before the detailed urbanistic design. Beyond the cases of Freiburg and La Motte-Servolex, the choice of an energy intermediary at the urban project stage would inevitably affect the form of the energy community(ies). Not only does the choice of the vector (generally, electricity or heat) narrow down the feld of transaction modalities because of the relevant national regulations, but above all the pre-existence, before the inhabitants move in, of an energy intermediary (and contracts linking it to the property owners) would pre-determine the transactions between in situ production and consumption. The choice of an energy intermediary not only sets the perimeter of subsequent energy communities but also constrains their room for manoeuvre in making energy sharing rules. In summary, the spatial scope, economic viability and governance of in situ energy production and sharing facilities supported by potential energy communities are highly dependent on the choices made during the development of the urban project.

Acknowledgements This work has been supported by the French Agency for Ecological Transition (APRED2017/RETHINE, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Région (Pack Ambition 2017/OREBE) and the Cross-Disciplinary Program Eco-SESA Smart Energies in Buildings receiving funding from the French National Research Agency in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02). Authors thank Lou Morriet for her involvement in the survey of actors.

Notes 1 City and urban developer named the urban project “Eco-Hameau des Granges”. The French word hameau could be translated into English as “hamlet”. The prefx “Eco” refers to ecology. 2 According to Rapport n°160 du Conseil d’État au Grand Conseil relatif à la planifcation énergétique du canton de Freiburg (nouvelle stratégie énergétique) (pp. 2213–2214). 3 Ibid., p. 2223. 4 GRDF (Gaz Réseau de Distribution France) is the quasi-monopolistic gas distribution network operator in France. 5 Schéma de Cohérence Territorial (SCoT) and Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU) are two spatial planning documents that defne land use in France. They were drawn up by the metropolitan authority and the municipality, respectively. The SCoT defnes the main urbanisation areas and long-term network infrastructures. Each PLU has to be compatible with SCoT and sets out detailed rules on the construction of new buildings.

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6 According to La Motte-Servolex PLU (2018: 6). 7 The CPAUPE (Cahier des prescriptions architecturales, urbaines, paysagères et environnementales) document details the architectural, urban, landscaping and environmental specifcations of the Eco-Hameau urban project, to be observed by property developers.

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Section B: Introduction

Collective self-consumption Regulatory framework set-up and controversies Section A focused on the motivations and construction of energy communities. The motivations reported in the chapters are in line with those of the scientifc literature (cf. 02); they vary in intensity according to the cases studied, the individuals (Martin et al., Pappalardo) and, to some extent, the progress of the project. It seems that during the operational phase, values not specifc to energy, such as respect for privacy, harmony within the community and return on investment, resurface. These may confict with the priority given to renewable energy and local energy and thus create tensions between the inhabitants, members of the energy community (Pappalardo). This being said, the case studies in Section A are rather singular. Largescale urban projects, such as those described by Ramirez-Cobo, Debizet and Tribout leave their marks on specifc places and times in the urban transformation of cities and metropolises. Participatory housing (Proulx and Van Neste; Pappalardo) accounts for a small proportion of overall housing in both Canada and France. Furthermore, forms of energy communities do not, at frst sight, appear to be attached to a particular type of confguration and are therefore likely to be implemented in varied existing frameworks. This is the case of the digital peer-to-peer platforms that are fourishing in several Western countries (and are the subject of Section D), the citizens’ cooperatives at the heart of Section C and the collective self-consumption (CSC) device studied in this section. CSC refers to exchanges of electricity between one or more producers/ prosumers and consumers within an explicitly defned collective. The frst chapter of this section (Lormeteau), both legal and philosophical in nature, positions this mechanism in the triple evolution of the emergence of the consumer-actor, the decentralisation of the electricity model and the reduction of energy vulnerabilities, and compares the legal devices adopted in France, Germany and Spain. Using the sociology notion of agencement (from the actor-network theory), the second chapter (Fonteneau) examines the CSC legal device in national policies supporting renewable energy and describes different areas of confict surrounding its development and adjustment.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-8

106  Section B Introduction: Collective self-consumption The two chapters clearly highlight the predominant role of the state in developing the regulatory framework of the electricity market; the European Union has played a role in mandating constraints (free choice of the supplier by the consumer, and of producer by the supplier, etc.) and issuing recent directives that had not yet been transcribed into national regulations at the time of the authors’ research. The chapters highlight the weight of network financing and macro-economic efficiency issues (especially in France) and the temptation to limit the spatial scope and energy power of CSC operations. The modes of legal arrangements differ according to the regulatory framework of the electricity system, as shown by the international comparison conducted by Lormeteau. Similarly, the political history of the electricity system has given rise to controversies and legal arrangements, as noted by Fonteneau. Both authors assume that the legal framework for CSC will probably remain focused on the local or even micro-local scale but would also undergo substantial changes in the coming years. Lormeteau sees a driving role for European directives promoting transparency and citizen involvement, while Fonteneau considers that the tension between national grid optimisation and local or community considerations would be at the heart of the changes.

Chapter B1. Regulatory framework of collective self-consumption operations: Comparative study France, Spain, Germany, by Blanche Lormeteau Lormeteau’s chapter compares the legal framework for CSC operations in France, Germany and Spain, which is characterised by the direct, local relationship between producer and consumer. The first part of the chapter explores the literature on energy justice, defined as “a global energy system that equitably disseminates the benefits and costs of energy services and has unbiased energy representatives and decision-makers” (Sovacool and Dworkin, 2014, p.677).1 The author refers to the notion of energy vulnerability, associated with reliable and sustainable access to energy. This vulnerability is increasing with climate change but in a heterogeneous way, depending on the territories and the capacity of the people. She also takes up Hopkins’ (2008) position that more space should be given to citizens and territories as they are the most able to identify their energy difficulties and dependencies. This leads her to highlight the notion of the commons to adopt the principle of procedural justice, good governance of the commons being a situation where “all people should have access to high-quality energy information and fair, transparent and accountable forms of energy decision making” (Sovacool, Dworkin, cit.). The application of these notions to CSC leads her to embrace the figure of the prosumer, as defined in the literature and by the European directive 2019/944: the active prosumer, an individual or group of individuals who consumes, stores or sells electricity that they have produced or that is

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supplied to them. Lormeteau, therefore, considers a self-consumption collective to be a form of active prosumer. This term generally defnes a new legal entity which is neither that of the supplier nor that of the producer operating on the electricity distribution network, but one that remains compatible with the principle of free choice of electricity supplier by the consumer of the public electricity distribution network. In France, the system requires a CSC operation to be attached to a legal entity which is authorised to supply electricity produced by one member to other members of the collective. These consumer members are still supplied by the licensed supplier like any other electricity consumer. In Germany, the legal CSC device is in line with an older regulation that allowed a landlord to sell electricity to tenants by combining the electricity produced by the said landlord with the electricity drawn from the public network: the landlord-producer thus replaces the usual supplier. The new CSC device has separated the function of “electricity seller” from that of “owner” and, in so doing, allows a producer to transfer electricity to households or companies whether or not these are tenants. In Spain, the CSC device works in a similar way to individual self-consumption (ISC), which had been subject to a tax funding the distribution network. As in Germany, transactions within the self-consumption collective can take place outside the public distribution network. In all three countries, the CSC scheme allows a producer to supply electricity directly to a consumer outside the market without being qualifed as a supplier and therefore without being subject to the related obligations. The local dimension is defned very differently: – In France, the maximum distance between two members (producer or consumer) cannot exceed 2 km in densely populated areas (and 20 km in very sparse rural areas) and the peak power is limited to 3 MW. – In Germany, exchanges are restricted to the private network and the peak power is limited to 100 kW. – In Spain, electricity fows can be either internal to a private network or through the public network using the same low-voltage transformer. The maximum distance between producers and consumers is limited to 500 m. The end of the chapter discusses the alignment of CSC operations with the new European directives defning renewable energy communities and citizen energy communities (CECs), the latter being distinguished by the environmental, economic and social benefts they bring to their members or the territory where they are located. A priori, the legal entities in charge of CSC operations could be considered as CECs, but this will depend on the way the States transcribe the directives into their regulations. The conclusion discusses the adequacy of the principle of energy justice. While the criteria of procedural justice (notably transparency and citizen

108  Section B Introduction: Collective self-consumption involvement) are well introduced by the recent European directive defining CECs, they had yet not been incorporated into the CSC devices analysed. This situation could change if the device is adapted to benefit from CEC status, or if, at a minimum, the legal entity conducting a CSC operation is recognised as a CEC. This could vary from country to country.

Chapter B2. The controversial emergence of collective self-consumption in France, by Thibaut Fonteneau Fonteneau’s chapter analyses the development of the CSC scheme in France between 2017 and 2019, considering it as a new agencement, in the sense of Callon (2017), to support renewable energy. This scheme allows one or more producers to sell electricity to members located nearby. The corresponding volume of energy is subtracted from the consumer members’ bill issued by his usual electricity supplier. For Fonteneau, self-consumption has brought about a paradigm shift from support for renewable energies through the guaranteed feed-in tariff that had been introduced almost two decades earlier in France and other European countries. This change was made possible by the gradual, continuous decrease of the feed-in tariff, which made ISC attractive compared to injecting the electricity produced into the public network and selling it to a consumers’ supplier. A 2015 act on energy transition outlined a device extending self-consumption, which had until then been de facto individual, to a collective composed of consumers and at least one prosumer or producer. Fonteneau’s chapter explores the development of this device by considering it as a new agencement of the electricity market, the result of a socio-technical valuation process involving a variety of actors, both economic and political. The chapter refers to parliamentary texts and documents from the Ministry of Energy and the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE). These include contributions to a CRE consultation on self-consumption, as well as two surveys, one of the actors involved in the national process and the other of actors who have participated in or observed three CSC operations. After the introduction, the chapter is structured in three sections: the transition from the feed-in tariff to ISC; the shift from ISC to CSC and finally the analysis of four controversies related to the development of the CSC device. While the feed-in tariff had been introduced with the dual objective of developing photovoltaic energy and creating a protected niche allowing for the emergence of a French photovoltaic panel industry, the increasing mass import of low-cost panels from Asia has led the government to reduce the guaranteed feed-in tariff. The fall in the cost of photovoltaic installation has made ISC attractive. The prospect of a drop in the revenue funding the network (proportional to the energy drawn by consumers) if ISC were

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developed without public control led the national authorities to defne a fxed feed-in tariff for the surplus production of individual self-consumers, thus enabling self-consuming photovoltaic installations to be registered by the electricity network operators. As the 2015 Energy Transition Act had outlined the principle of CSC, it was up to the government to develop a regulatory device to enable electricity exchanges between producers and consumers without going through an energy supplier. As the electricity network in cities is capable of absorbing signifcant on-site photovoltaic production, housing buildings and neighbourhoods appeared to be places where the surplus of ISC could be easily absorbed by local residents. A system respecting the following principles was outlined: The electricity produced would be distributed among the self-consumers according to an allocation formula to be collectively agreed by participants. This formula was to be transmitted to the distribution network operator (DSO), who would manage the metering and the transmission to the participants’ respective suppliers. This system immediately sparked widespread interest as the idea of energy communities producing and allocating electricity to the members of a collective was gaining popularity in France at that time. Local authorities, social housing companies and real-estate developers have launched CSC operations in addition to their own ISC. The legal framework has been the subject of several controversies. Fonteneau identifes four: counting the time interval of the energy produced; the formula for allocating in situ production to consumer participants; setting the spatial perimeter and adapting the existing taxes funding the public network. He shows how the stakeholders in the electricity market and representatives of potential stakeholders of CSC operations have weighed in to set these elements in the initial device and subsequent adjustments. He highlights several tensions: between the objective of making CSC attractive and that of maintaining funding for the network; between the interests of the dominant electricity players and the desire to bring in new business models and new players; between the real-estate players seeking to extend their service to energy and the electricity suppliers and between the national and community scales for the implementation of solidarity. In conclusion, Fonteneau believes that the tension between the desire to optimise the national network and involving the local level in the energy sector will be at the heart of discussions in France in the years to come.

Note 1 The bibliographical references of this Section B Introduction are indicated in the list of references of the relevant chapter.

B.1 Regulatory framework of collective self-consumption operations Comparative study France, Spain, Germany Blanche Lormeteau 1 Introduction In order to mitigate and adapt to climate change, energy models are undergoing a major transition: mass use of renewable energy sources, search for energy sobriety, development of new uses (electric vehicles; storage) and new vectors (hydrogen), etc. All of these changes result in a need to change the modes of governance of energy systems, traditionally subject to the search for a compromise between adherence to the climate regime and the principle of state sovereignty (Lormeteau, 2018). In this sense, and in line with the concept of resilience (Jasiunas, Lund and Mikkola, 2021), short energy circuits, of which collective self-consumption is one of the manifestations, have the particularity of supporting a local governance of energy allowing an increasing integration of the energy issues (Campos et al., 2020) of climate disruption from the perspective of the concept of energy justice (Sovacool and Dworkin, 2014).

2 Energy justice and short-circuit energy development: reducing socio-economic and territorial vulnerabilities If there seems to be an intuitive link between the development of short circuits, local governance and energy justice (Van Veelen, 2018), a multi-scalar approach to the changes in energy systems under the effect of energy justice is also possible to demonstrate the emergence of local energy governance (Bommel van and Höffken, 2021), this developing concept of energy justice (Heffron and McCauley, 2018; Del Guayo et al., 2020; Lormeteau, 2021) allows for a teleological analysis of these changes. Defned as “a global energy system that equitably disseminates the benefts and costs of energy services and has unbiased energy representatives and decision-makers” (Sovacool and Dworkin, 2014, p.677), energy justice develops a new repertoire of analysis of the current search for the balance between energy security, equity and environmental sustainability of energy systems (Lesage and Van de Graal, 2013) - the Energy Trilemma (del Rio del Valle, 2020), which is effcient, fair and equitable (McCauley, 2017). DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-9

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 111 Energy justice is one facet of climate justice, in that they both recognise “the need to address, from an equity perspective, the often-disproportionate impact of climate change on citizens and local communities in developed and developing economies” (Decision 1-/CP.21; Jouzel and Michelot, 2020). They will promote an integrated and global approach to climate issues in order to work on reducing the links of dependence, specifcally energy dependence, which is the basis of inequalities and climate change. Energy justice requires the development of adaptation and mitigation policies to climate change that are specifc to each situation and each territory. Thus, the observation is that energy dependencies have created a global system placing populations and territories in a state of energy vulnerability because they do not control the energy sources necessary for their development and because they are factors of climate change. Energy vulnerability identifed by energy justice (Sovacool, 2013) characterises actual or potential inequalities in access to energy (Walker, 2015), and covers a dynamic, multi-dimensional phenomenon considering internal parameters, attached to the individual (socio-demographic characteristics, consumption practices, needs, etc.) and external parameters, relating to socio-spatial realities, specifc to each territory, in particular the mode of energy governance. The identifcation of energy vulnerabilities makes it necessary to rethink the whole organisation of energy governance, in particular by giving a more important place to citizens and territories, capable of identifying their energy diffculties and dependencies (Hopkins, 2008). In this sense, energy justice aims to draw attention to the way in which the benefts and burdens of energy systems are distributed, which is in line with the defnition proposed by E. Oström, according to which the commons is a set of resources collectively governed, by means of a governance structure ensuring a distribution of rights among the partners participating in the commons (commoners) and aiming at the orderly exploitation of the resource allowing its reproduction in the long term. (Coriat, 2015, p.38–39) Applied to the energy sector, and placing energy vulnerability issues in parallel, a link can be made with energy justice. Indeed, its purpose is to draw attention to the way in which the benefts and burdens of energy systems are distributed. Energy justice responds to eight principles for identifying a “just” energy system, one of which is that of good governance, i.e., that all people should have access to high-quality energy information and fair, transparent and accountable forms of energy decision-making (Sovacool and Dworkin, 2015). It is therefore essential in relation to Procedural Justice that an analysis of the determinants of local energy governance can be developed in the example of collective self-consumption operations. The development of local energy governance, therefore, raises questions about the decentralisation of energy system management, which can be

112 Blanche Lormeteau understood in different ways, depending in particular on the legal context of each country (Watson and Devine-Wright, 2011). One of the ways of approaching it is by decentralising the electricity system from the point of view of the place of the consumer in relation to the energy issues of the territory (Poupeau, 2007; Hisschemöller and Sioziou, 2013).

3 The emergence of the consumer-actor as a key to common analysis of the evolution of energy systems The emergence of the reference to the consumer-actor (Global Observatory, 2019) in the energy sector is thus observed to qualify the one who seeks to consume “green” and local energy, or even the one, from the perspective of the prosumer, who actively participates in the energy market, being able to act within the framework of collective relations (Gui and MacGill, 2018), and of which collective self-consumption is the typical example. Prosumerism refers to the current alteration of the distinction in the market (Kalkbrenner and Roosen, 2016) between production and consumption patterns due to the engagement of actors, individual or collective, in the satisfaction of all elements of the energy cycle. Thus, as early as 2014, the IAE published research on the stakes and benefts of the prosumption of photovoltaic electricity in the context of the fght against climate change. The study underlined that The rise of the solar photovoltaic “prosumer” has the potential to transform the centralized electric utility model that has served the world for over 100 years into a more decentralized and interactive system. In some areas of the world it is now more cost-effective for households to produce their own power from PV than to purchase electricity from the grid. (IEA-RETD, 2014, p.5) European energy policy has also incorporated this new consumer concept. For example, the European Economic and Social Committee states that “energy prosumption can be seen as an important element in the move towards decentralised generation, representing a broadly desirable pattern from the perspective of energy security, as well as from an environmental and social point of view”. Prosumers are defned as: individuals, groups of individuals, households or farms able to operate in an organised way, e.g. through associations, foundations or cooperatives, that are both producers and consumers of energy produced in small installations located in back yards or on residential or commercial buildings (e.g. mini wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, solar collectors and heat pumps). Prosumers can also be small businesses, including social enterprises and local authorities. (EESC, 2016, p.10)

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 113 Finally, Directive 2019/944 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2019 on common rules for the internal market for electricity IMED adopts this concept, recognising, in addition to the right to self-consumption, the existence of the concept of active customer as a customer or a group of jointly acting customers who consume, store or sell electricity generated on their premises, including through aggregators, or participate in demand response or energy effciency schemes provided that these activities do not constitute their primary commercial or professional activity. (art. 2 8) Thus defning the members of collective self-consumption operations. Considering the modifcation of the roles of the different energy actors, the analysis of the local governance modes of the electricity systems allows a comparative approach between three States, France, Spain and Germany, which have a different legal framework (Frieden, Tuerk and Neumann, 2020), in particular, because of their federal or unitary state structures and the distribution of competences in the electricity sector. Faced with a multitude of reasons that may explain the choice of energy consumers to have their roles in the power system evolve (Hewitt et al, 2019), the legal regime of collective self-consumption operations is another key to analysing this phenomenon (Campos and Martin-Gonzalez, 2020), by characterising two criteria: frst, the legal environment of the new relationships created in relation to the classical energy law, second, that of localism, as collective self-consumption is explicitly inscribed as a local short circuit of energy and this, especially as energy communities are now legally determined, will come to offer a new governance framework to energy exchanges (Verde and Rossetto, 2020; Busch et al., 2021) in which collective self-consumption operations have a full role to play (Almeida et al., 2021).

4 The legal status of the producer of a collective selfconsumption operation, the frst mark of a decentralisation of the electricity model Collective self-consumption can be presented as the frst phase of the structuring of decentralised governance of electricity exchanges between a producer and a consumer because it questions the legal qualifcation of these two system actors. Decentralisation is then not defned in relation to the distribution network or the market (Dudjak et al., 2021), but in relation to the market actors, the suppliers. Thus, the diffculty in structuring local energy governance is to respect, for the consumer, the principle of free choice of supplier (art. 21, dir. 2003/54; art. 33, dir. 2009/72), as a correlation to the affrmation of the right of third parties to access the network (ECJ, 7 June 2005, VEMW, C-17/03, Rec. I-04983). The

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setting up of a collective self-consumption operation allows a frst step towards this governance by creating new contractual relations between the actors. As for the principle of free choice of supplier, the central question in the legal orders is whether the producer of a collective self-consumption operation is a supplier, in the legal sense of the term. Indeed, in the electricity market, only suppliers - with an administrative authorisation – can carry out the activity of supply, i.e., “the sale, including resale, of electricity to customers” (art. 2, dir. 2019/944). Therefore, according to a strict interpretation, a direct sale between a producer and a consumer of electricity cannot be assimilated into a supply activity, unless the producer holds the status of the supplier. However, supplier status is restrictive because of the administrative requirements and the public service obligations imposed on a supplier. If the producer of a collective self-consumption operation were to obtain the status of the supplier, then this exchange model would lose its fexibility and would resemble a classic contractual framework on the energy market, losing any purpose of structuring decentralised governance of energy. Moreover, no legislation assimilates the producer of a self-consumption operation with a supplier. This specifcity of collective self-consumption operations places them outside the electricity market, and thus constitutes one of the criteria of what would be the local governance of energy. Thus, without explicitly deciding the question of the producer’s qualifcation as a supplier (Almeida et al., 2021), national legal frameworks for collective self-consumption operations have been set up, opting either for the recognition of power purchases agreements or for the structuring of an ad hoc entity in charge of contractualising these relations. The only legal framework imposed is that the consumer of a collective self-consumption operation benefts from all the rights of an ordinary electricity consumer (art. 21, directive 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources below RED II). 4.1 French case Since 2016 (Ordinance No. 2016-1019 of 27 July 2016 on self-consumption of electricity, JORF No. 174 of 28 July 2016), France has favoured the implementation of a legally structured governance of collective self-consumption operations around an organising legal entity (PMO)1 (art. L.315-2 of the French Energy Code) made up of the producer(s) and the consumer(s), the legal nature of which is left open, i.e., it can be a private company, a cooperative, a public-private partnership, a public entity or an association. However, this PMO is not in charge of contracts between the producer and the consumer. Its main task is to act as an interface between these players and the distribution system operator in order to provide the latter with the information needed to conduct operations (quantity of energy exchanged, quantity of energy supplied by third-party suppliers, presence of a storage facility, fow repair key, etc., art. L.315-4; D.315-6 and D.315-9 of the French Energy

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 115 Code). Therefore, in the French framework, the PMO makes it possible to identify producers providing a supply activity to consumers, without them being assimilated to suppliers on the market, reinforcing the observation that collective self-consumption operations are indeed outside the market and constitute an ad hoc framework for electricity exchanges. The absence of an identifed legal structure for the PMO and the absence of internal governance rules offer some fexibility to the project actors to determine their own governance rules, especially if they adopt the associative framework. But at the same time, this absence of a legislative framework does not make it possible to ensure the real effectiveness of shared governance, particularly the question of the allocation rules between production and consumption fows, between players who do not have the same degree of information and knowledge of the energy system, whereas, in France, the project owners and producers are for the time being mainly professionals in the sector or public establishments specialising in the energy sector. In 2019 there were 34 active operations, 453 consumers (mainly households and small B2Bs), 1.45 MW installed capacity, 68 PV installations, including 52 small producers under individual SC schemes sharing their surplus (OFATE, 2020). The only existing structuring, underlining the importance of protecting more vulnerable consumers, is that of collective self-consumption operations among social landlords. Indeed, the main disadvantage of the structuring of PMO is that of managing the freedom of consumers and producers to join or withdraw from the operation. This freedom infuences the economic proftability of the operation, which depends on the number of its members. Like any consumer, tenants have the right to freely choose their suppliers (art. L.331-1 of the French Energy Code), but the occupation of the dwellings is temporary in principle. Therefore, for social landlords, the variability of consumers is a sensitive parameter. Taking the example of the German framework (infra.), a legal framework was specifcally created in 2019 (Law no. 2019-1147 of 8 November 2019 on energy and climate). In this case, the social landlord is the PMO (art. L.315-2-2 of the French Energy Code). Information on the presence of a collective self-consumption operation is provided when the lease contract is concluded, and the tenant can freely decide not to participate in the operation, and will also be able to leave the operation at any time. The information is delivered during a dedicated meeting and by means of a specifc document, posted within the building and given individually to each tenant. It must include, in particular, a description of the operation, the methods envisaged for distributing energy among the tenants; the methods for passing on the fnancial impact of the participation in the operation to the tenants; the conditions for changing the fnancial impact and a simulation of the overall fnancial impact for one or more typical households (art. R.315-13 of the French Energy Code). However, nothing is indicated on the rights of the tenant-consumers regarding the governance of the collective self-consumption operation. Therefore, this specifcity underlines once again that collective self-consumption operations, despite this legal structure

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of “PMO”, identify contractual relations between producer and consumer, bypassing the status of the supplier, without implying a real appropriation of the local governance of electricity in an institutional sense. Moreover, this difference in France between collective self-consumption operations is the result of a distortion in the implementation of a right to information and in the organisation of local and shared governance, with regard to the requirements of procedural energy justice. Thus, the legislator only frames the information delivered to the participants of an operation led by a social landlord, without the information delivered to the participants of common law operations being framed, taking into account the observation that, in other community systems, there is a sociological limit to the investment of some consumers in governance despite transparent information (Burchell, Rettie and Roberts, 2016). 4.2 German case In Germany, collective self-consumption has long been restricted to the building scale, involving contractual relationships between a producer and its occupants, the “Mieterstrommodell”, without a governance model behind it. As of 3 July 2019, the Federal Grid Agency’s register had registered 677 tenantbased PV electricity installations with a total of about 13.9 MW (BWE,2 2021). The reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act 2021 (EEG, 2021) has changed this framework. Thus, in addition to collective self-consumption operations within a building, it is now possible to develop operations on a neighbourhood scale. In order to respect the right of fnal consumers to choose their supplier, the energy sector law provides for specifc provisions for collective self-consumption contracts for the occupants of dwellings (§ 42 a., Gesetzüber die Elektrizitäts- und Gasversorgung, Energiewirtschaftsgesetz – EnWG), because the contract is qualifed as a supply contract (§ 3 20e, Gesetzfür den AusbauerneuerbarerEnergien, ErneuerbareEnergien-Gesetz - EEG 2021). In addition, specifc rules for the supply activity within the framework of a collective self-consumption operation apply to the producer, such as the metering obligation for determining the tax base (§ 74 a Gesetzfür den AusbauerneuerbarerEnergien, Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz - EEG 2021). The German legislation proceeds by listing specifc obligations: the contract may not form part of a contract for the rental of residential premises, on pain of nullity; it must provide for the total supply of electricity to the end consumer, even if local electricity supply is not possible; in the event of moving out, the contract automatically ends when the property is returned; the duration of the contract is one year, with tacit renewal possible, etc. Thus, in order to maintain a certain fexibility, collective self-consumption as organised in German law is based on a framework placing the producer and the consumer in a specifc contractual relationship. However, there is nothing to prevent the contractual relationship of collective self-consumption from taking place within an energy cooperative (Energiegenossenschaft) or a civil law partnership (Gesellschaft

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 117 bürgerlichenRechts) (Radtke and Ohlhorst, 2021), but these are not forms imposed by the German legislator (Funcke and Ruppert-Winkel, 2020). Decentralisation of the electricity system once again takes the form of governance based on a direct, non-market contract between a producer and a consumer. However, since 2021, the contractual relationship can now be tripartite, with the producer selling its electricity to an intermediary in charge of supplying the electricity to consumers. The producer is then no longer subject to the specifc contractual rules relating to the marketing of this “local” electricity. 4.3 Spanish case Spain has also adopted an essentially contractual framework for dealing with collective self-consumption operations (Gallego-Castillo, Heleno and Victoria, 2021), although limiting them to a specifc geographical area. Until the adoption of Royal Decrees 15/2018 of 5 October 2018 and 244/2019 of 5 April 2019, Spain had a particularly restrictive framework for photovoltaic production (Masson, Briano and Baez, 2016) due in particular to the institution of a “solar tax” (Real Decreto 900/2015, of 9 October 2015), which was levied specifcally on self-consumed photovoltaic electricity. Thus, collective self-consumption refers to the consumption of one or more consumers of electrical energy from nearby production facilities associated with those intended for consumption (art. 9, Ley 24/2013, de 26 de diciembre, del Sector Eléctrico, BOE-A-2013-13645), without the term associate being specifed, when the generation facilities, with a capacity of less than 100 kW, can, in addition to providing energy for self-consumption, inject surplus energy into the transmission and distribution networks. Again, as in Germany, collective self-consumption operations could be carried out within Cooperativas de Consumo, co-operations prefguring the organisation of European energy communities (Frieden et al., 2019). The analysis of these three frameworks shows that collective self-consumption is indeed a frst step in the decentralisation of electrical models, not in relation to the network - Germany and Spain do not have the very specifc monopolistic situation of France in the management of the distribution network - but in relation to the actors of the energy system. The creation of new ad hoc contractual frameworks, without national or even European legislation proceeding to legally determine the production activity within a collective self-consumption operation in relation to the classic supply activity, participates, even in the absence of a determined local governance structure for these exchanges, in a decentralisation of the electricity model. 4.4 Perspective of energy communities in European law This observation is corroborated by European law. Directive 2018/2001 (RED II) does specify that self-consumers of renewable energy are fnal customers who may “store or sell renewable electricity that he has produced

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himself, provided that these activities do not constitute, for the self-consumer of renewable energy who is not a household, his principal professional or commercial activity” (art. 2 14, reading attached to 15, for “jointly acting renewables self-consumers”, dir. 2018/2001). Directive 2019/944 IMED defnes the collective self-consumer as an “active customer”, who may sell electricity “which he has produced himself or participates in fexibility or energy effciency programmes, provided that these activities do not constitute his main commercial or professional activity” (art. 2 8, dir. 2019/944). Thus, the producer member of a collective self-consumption operation is clearly distinguished from a supplier acting on the market. The articulation between collective self-consumption and energy communities reveals the same dynamic. Thus, within the meaning of the IMED directive, the purpose of the citizen energy community is “to offer environmental, economic or social community benefts to its members or shareholders or to the local territories where it operates, rather than to generate fnancial profts”; in the sense of the RED II directive, the renewable energy community (below REC) aims to “provide environmental, economic or social benefts to its shareholders or members or to the local territories where it operates, rather than seeking proft”, its article 22 specifying that, for private companies that would participate in these renewable energy communities, this must not be “their main commercial or professional activity”. These two communities can perfectly well carry out collective self-consumption operations alongside their other activities. Spain has transposed only the defnition of RECs (art. 6 1. j, Ley 24/2013, de 26 de diciembre, del Sector Eléctrico, BOE-A-2013-13645) but without specifying the articulation with collective self-consumption operations, Germany has not yet transposed. The French legal framework, which has strictly transposed these two defnitions (art. L.291-1 and L.292-1 of the French Energy Code), provides that the PMO can be an energy community (art. L.315-2-2 of the French Energy Code), giving collective self-consumption operation a possibility to have an organised governance structure. In all cases, it can be observed that collective self-consumption of electricity contributes to the decentralisation of the energy system because it modifes the roles traditionally reserved for the players in the energy system by allowing the producer to supply electricity outside the market, directly to a consumer, without necessarily being qualifed as a supplier, the German framework being an exception in the European landscape.

5 Collective self-consumption as an activity of energy communities to maintain the localism of exchanges The second key element identifying collective self-consumption as participating in a decentralisation of the electricity model is that of promoting the local character of energy exchanges, an element shared by the different legal frameworks with varying degrees of precision (Frieden et al., 2019). Thus, it can be observed that collective self-consumption has a strong territorial

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 119 anchorage, being part of Energy Justice since it prompts attention to how the benefts and burdens of the local energy system are distributed. The consumer and/or the producer remain in a close geographical framework, they appropriate the territorial management of energy see, can with physical relations. 5.1 French case Since July 2021, France has had three collective self-consumption regimes that are differentiated according to their scope (art. L.315-2 of the French Energy Code). The frst is that of self-consumption located in the same building, which may be residential, tertiary or industrial. The second is the case of so-called “extended” collective self-consumption operations: the supply of electricity takes place between one or more producers and one or more consumers “whose extraction and injection points are located on the lowvoltage network and meet the criteria, in particular geographical proximity”. The criteria are set by ministerial order after the opinion of the Commission de régulation de l’énergie3 (order of 21 November 2019 setting the criterion of geographical proximity of extended collective self-consumption): the distance separating the two most distant participants does not exceed two kilometres from the delivery point for consumption sites; from the injection point for generation sites; the cumulative power of the generation facilities is less than 3 MW on the mainland metropolitan territory and 0.5 MW in non-interconnected areas (for solar energy, the power considered is the peak power). In addition, a derogation was introduced in 2020 (order of 14 October 2020 amending the order of 21 November 2019 setting the geographical proximity criterion for extended collective self-consumption): the minister in charge of energy may, at the request of a PMO whose extended collective self-consumption project is located in low-density, authorise a project where the distance between the two furthest participants is a maximum of 20 kilometres. This derogation is justifed in particular with regard to the isolation of the project location, the scattered nature of its habitat and its low population density, thus allowing rural areas to be included. Finally, the third system is the extended collective self-consumption operation, only when the electricity supplied is of renewable origin, and whose extraction and injection points can then be located on the public electricity distribution network. 5.2 German case In Germany, collective self-consumption operations were initially limited to the scale of a building. The reform carried out in 2021 allows an extension of these operations to the scale of a district determined by the fact that the electricity does not transit through the public network, within the limit of an installed capacity of 100 kW (§ 21 (3) Gesetzfür den AusbauerneuerbarerEnergien, Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz - EEG 2021).

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5.3 Spanish case In Spain, collective self-consumption is limited physically and geographically by the following conditions: the participants must be located within the low-voltage distribution network located downstream of the same transformer station; the maximum distance between production and consumption meters must be 500 m; the participants are located in the same cadastral area and fnally, the production means are connected to the internal network of the associated consumers (direct lines) or to the low-voltage network (art. 3 g, Real Decreto 244/2019, de 5 de abril, por el que se regulan las condicionesadministrativas, técnicas y económicas del autoconsumo de energíaeléctrica). This characteristic of collective self-consumption operations is very important. Thus, the French framework offers as much distance as possible between the self-consumers. However, as the Commission de régulation de l’énergie (2020) pointed out during its consultation on the extended perimeter: “authorising such a distance for an operation in an urban area would not allow the ‘local’ dimension that must be inherent in a self-consumption operation to be maintained”. A physical distance is created between producer and consumer.

5.4 Perspective in European law of energy communities If the link between collective self-consumption and territorial resource management is distant, it is present in the defnitions of energy communities. The defnition of renewable energy communities in the RED II Directive requires that this entity “is based on open and voluntary participation, is autonomous, is effectively controlled by shareholders or members in the vicinity of the renewable energy projects to which the legal entity has subscribed and which it has developed” (art. 2 16, dir. 2018/2001). Recital 70 of the Directive insists, stating that The involvement of local people and local authorities in renewable energy projects through renewable energy communities has added great value in terms of local acceptance of renewable energy and has enabled access to more private capital, resulting in local investments, greater consumer choice and increased citizen participation in the energy transition. This local engagement is all the more essential in the context of increasing renewable energy capacity. Measures to enable renewable energy communities to compete on an equal footing with other producers are also intended to increase the participation of local citizens in renewable energy projects and thus increase the acceptance of renewable energy. This commitment to the local character of the resource being exploited is necessarily only imposed on communities based on local energy exploitation. It places renewable energy communities as true local energy resource management entities. The citizen energy community under the IMED directive is interested in the environmental, economic or social

Collective self-consumption regulatory framework 121 benefts to its members, or “to the local territories where it carries out its activities” (art. 2 11, dir. 2019/944), without the link with the exploitation of a local resource being made, distancing somewhat the approach of a territorialised energy management. Thus, collective self-consumption developed within the framework of citizen energy communities will make it possible to maintain a strong link with the territory because these communities are not necessarily part of a local governance structure for energy exchanges, but more broadly in exchanges of energy services (production, consumption, storage, energy effciency).

6 Conclusion Collective self-consumption thus characterises a progressive implementation of local energy governance through the decentralisation of exchanges carried out within the framework of ad hoc contracts and enhancing the territorial attachment of this relationship. Thus, collective self-consumption highlights the indicators necessary to identify a decentralisation of the electricity model under the prism of energy justice as new contractual relationships redistributing the roles of the actors and a certain geographical proximity between the co-contractors. It encourages the accentuation of local governance of energy exchanges in order to guarantee equality of rights between the participants through equitable representation of individuals, equality of rights, and in particular the capacity of actors to make decisions on energy policies and projects, and a right to transparent and accessible information. These two criteria do not seem to be fully met by the legal framework developed for collective self-consumption but seem to be able to be met in the future by energy communities, in which collective self-consumption can be carried out, offering a new and welcome governance framework. It appears that energy communities as defned by EU law are more in line with the concept of energy justice by promoting effective control of the entities by the members and shareholders and by insisting on the link with the benefts and services provided to its members and to the public. Therefore, if collective self-consumption operations participate in the energy transition, by redesigning a local governance of multi-actor energy (Hiteva and Sovacool, 2017), it remains to be ensured that the rules of governance of collective self-consumption operations, and also of future energy communities (Horstink, Wittmayer and Ngac, 2021), allow for a balanced participation of the different actors in these structures in order to apply the concept of energy justice.

Notes 1 PMO: in French is a “personne morale organisatrice”: legal entity. 2 BWE is the “Bundesministerium für wirtschaft und energie, the German Federal Ministry for economic Affairs and energy”. 3 French Energy Regulator.

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B.2 The controversial emergence of collective self-consumption in France Thibaut Fonteneau

1 Introduction The development of renewable energies and their integration into the electricity system is central to energy transition. The small scale and the intermittent nature of production are major challenges. In parallel, the decrease in photovoltaic (PV) production costs, the hike in electricity prices, and the gradual reduction of feed-in tariffs (FiTs) are making self-consumption increasingly attractive. Self-consumption represents a paradigm shift in the pricing of electricity from renewable sources, which had been largely based on the FiT scheme. This tariff was set according to a cost coverage model that ensured reasonable proftability for projects. The economic selfconsumption model, on the other hand, is based on savings on the electricity bill that depend on the rate of self-consumption and the selling price of the electricity. While FiTs have been the main mode framing the economic exchange of PV production in France over the last two decades, selfconsumption marks a major change, as outlined in the 2015 Act of Energy Transition for Green Growth (TECV1 by its initials in French) and various other regulatory or legislative acts published between 2017 and 2019. This chapter explores the implementation of a new regulatory framework for self-consumption in France, focusing on one of its components: collective self-consumption (CSC). This extends the idea of individual selfconsumption (ISC) from a single entity to a group, thus organizing an exchange using the public distribution grid between geographically close producers and consumers. Given the institutional and political landscape of electricity in France, which is still marked by a strong centralizing culture, the emergence of CSC has not been a smooth ride. This controversy will be explored, along with the sticking points in the regulations that reveal different visions of the electricity system and its development. Central to this subject is the notion of agencement (Callon, 2017) developed in the feld of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and in works of economic and political sociology referring to the French energy sector. The notion of socio-technical agencement was inherited from Foucault’s notion of dispositif (translated as “device” or “apparatus” in English) and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-10

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 127 popularized by work in innovation sociology. It describes an arrangement of heterogeneous elements (material, immaterial, human, non-human), placing the emphasis on the specifc action produced by this arrangement (Callon, 2017). Many works claiming to be at least partially based on this approach have focused on energy (Silvast, 2017). Three lessons have been retained from these works and will inform the analysis of the case at hand. First, by using the notion of framing, market agencements lead to thought about the transformation of the objects described. Market devices actually frame market exchanges by defning the terms of exchange, setting the parameters of what is exchanged, by whom, and at what price. Since the action of framing necessarily consists of selecting what is taken into account and what is left out of the market, there can be an overfow of questions and issues that were not included in the initial framing (Callon, 1998). In this study, the type of framing set up by the new rules on self-consumption will be examined, along with the way in which they affect the framings of other agencements, such as the network tariff (TURPE).2 Secondly, this theoretical approach focuses on the value of goods and services from a constructivist perspective. In other words, the value of goods and services is not intrinsic to the objects, but rather the result of a socio-technical valuation process (Helgesson and Muniesa, 2013; Kornberger et al., 2015). Because the framing necessarily involves delimiting what is and what is not to be taken into account, defning the value of an object (material or immaterial) is a collective and distributed process prone to controversy (Doganova, 2015; Doganova and Karnøe, 2015; Reverdy, 2017; Roscoe and Townley, 2016). Lastly, work regarding energy relying on agencements reveals constant interaction between economic knowledge and political stakes. Such interaction arises in the construction of market devices such as capacity markets (Breslau, 2013), fexibility markets (Jenle and Pallesen, 2017), electricity tariffs (Reverdy and Breslau, 2019; Yon, 2020), and FiTs (Cointe and Nadaï, 2018). These are therefore often considered not only as market agencements but also as political ones (Cointe, 2014). This paper is also based on works of political sociology that have studied in detail the positions and discourses of energy actors in France. These works reveal that the institutional landscape of energy in France remains strongly dominated by actors with a centralizing vision (Aykut and Evrard, 2017). Described by Poupeau (2020) as “historical Jacobins”, this centralizing coalition brings together historically powerful actors. It defends a centralized electricity system revolving around nuclear energy. Among these actors are EDF,3 Enedis4 (distribution system operator – DSO), RTE5 (transmission system operator – TSO), the Ministry of Finance, and the dominant unions of EDF, like the CGT.6 Poupeau also shows that this group is being challenged by two other visions. One of these can be considered diametrically opposed to the group, while the other holds an intermediate stance. Poupeau describes the group opposed to the historical Jacobins as “alternative decentralizers” (Poupeau, 2020, p2). Their vision

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is essentially embodied by ADEME,7 a governmental agency in charge of energy saving that, since its creation, has strongly bolstered the development of renewable energies. Around them, associations and NGOs, such as Negawatt or CLER,8 gather energy experts defending the emergence of a strongly decentralized electricity system based on renewable energies. This group also includes the large cities grouped within the France Urbaine (Urban France) association, whose power has been asserted with liberalization and metropolitanization. Between these two opposing groups, a number of actors are considered by Poupeau as “moderate decentralizers”. Many of them, in particular the DGEC,9 a department of the Ministry of Ecology, and the FNCCR,10 an association representing the interests of rural areas, are well established in the institutional landscape. The former implements policies based increasingly on the notion of “territory” (Nadaï et al., 2015, p282; Poupeau, 2020, p7) while the latter defends the interests of rural areas. During the liberalization period, the FNCCR grew closer to EDF to protect a national redistribution system benefting rural territories. To complement this description, essentially based on relationships with centralization, the more specifc actors in the feld of renewable energies and PVs should be mentioned. First of all, there is the SER,11 the French Renewable Energy Trade Association, which promotes the interests of industrials and professionals of the sector and is strongly dominated by the incumbent energy players. There is also Enerplan, a professional union defending the interests of small- and medium-sized companies in the solar sector, with a rather liberal and entrepreneurial orientation. Finally, the Hespul association, created in the 1990s, is very close to the NGO Negawatt and over the years has become a central actor in the feld of solar energy in France. This study is based on three main types of qualitative material: 1 Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders who participated directly in the construction of the French selfconsumption regulations. 2 Offcial documents, such as French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE)12 delineations, a DGEC report on self-consumption, contributions of actors to CRE’s consultation on self-consumption, and parliamentary reports transcribing debates on self-consumption. 3 A study of three CSC projects, for which we conducted 19 semistructured interviews.13 To address CSC as a new agencement for electricity exchange, the new framing operated by ISC of electricity fows will be described and compared to FiTs. Its advantages, on both the economic and political levels, will be detailed. It will be noted that ISC entails a certain number of problems or overfows with respect to the existing agencements. CSC in France has been considered able to internalize a certain number of overfows from ISC.

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 129 However, it has introduced an additional complexity by allowing the emergence of collectives within a political economy of the power grid that previously combined mainly individual forms of production and consumption (Fontaine, 2018) and redistribution mechanisms on a national scale (Poupeau, 2007). The main components of the CSC framework will be addressed, and the questions raised will be discussed. It will fnally be shown that, while the implementation of CSC has not led to a profound change in the grid’s tariff agencement, it has revived an old discussion on the founding principles of the French electricity system.

2 Moving from feed-in tariffs to self-consumption: opportunities and risks 2.1 Feed-in-tariffs: a declining “agencement” since 2010 To understand what is at stake in the emergence of CSC, it must be clear what self-consumption is replacing. The dominant system in France for the economic valuation of decentralized PV production has long been the FiT. The trajectory of said tariffs at the European level has not been straightforward, and FiTs have faced competition from other instruments, in particular green certifcates (Lauber and Schenner, 2011). One of the criticisms of FiTs is their incompatibility with a market model, and thus their compatibility with the dominant European political orientation. However, FiTs had certain advantages, such as their ability to internalize externalities (Menanteau et al., 2003) and create a protected space by encouraging innovation (Smith and Raven, 2012). This allowed for their progressive imposition in Europe and in France as the support scheme for renewables. FiTs were based on a vision of the common good that provided support for an emerging technology, helping it to catch up with other technologies (grid parity) through a consumption-based funding mechanism (CSPE).14 This redistribution was made acceptable on the condition of ensuring that the proftability of the projects was not excessive to avoid creating excessive windfall profts. The French Energy Regulation Agency (CRE) was particularly careful to respect these principles (Pallesen, 2016). Hence, FiTs required calibration, which implied a valuation process (Pallesen, 2016), i.e., determining the value of this electricity. This proved to be complex, as it required forecasts on the development of the technologies in question. While these may be informed by science, they could also prove to be inaccurate (Cointe and Nadaï, 2018; Menanteau et al., 2003). In France, FiTs for solar PVs were increased in 2006. In the absence of an adjustment mechanism, the number of projects mushroomed when PV production costs dropped. The upshot was an increase in the cost of supporting PV, and by extension the price of electricity, since FiTs were fnanced by the CSPE. This shattered the compromise on which the FiTs were based (support for emerging technology through levies on consumers on the condition that profts of PV producers

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were controlled and a French PV industry developed), leading to a political crisis and a redesign of the instrument (Cointe, 2015; Debourdeau, 2011a). 2.2 Self-consumption: a new paradigm for decentralized photovoltaic The emergence of self-consumption in France should be read as a continuation of the crisis in the PV sector. A frst working group on the question was launched in 2013 by the DGEC and brought together a wide range of stakeholders. Self-consumption was then discussed as the device that should prevail with the achievement of grid parity. If FiTs had been a transitional device, self-consumption could very well become a long-term mechanism to integrate decentralized renewable production. One of the main conclusions of the working group’s report was that the transformations brought about by self-consumption were more economic than physical. The implementation of self-consumption did not change the way in which the fows between solar panels and the consumer electricity systems occur, but it did change the way in which they were measured and how an economic value was assigned to them. In the case of FiTs, the entire production was counted and framed as electricity injected into the grid. Even if this injected electricity could then come to supply the producer’s electricity system, the framing of the agencement (FiT) erased its visibility. In contrast, with self-consumption, the electricity produced on-site is consumed frstly by the electricity system, upstream of the meter. In practice, this means that the electricity produced by the panels directly feeds the private electrical installation before a possible surplus is injected into the grid. In case of no or insuffcient electricity production, the installation can consume electricity from the grid. In short, while the FiT regime distinguished only two types of electricity fows: generation fed into the grid and consumption withdrawn from the grid, self-consumption distinguishes three types: self-consumed electricity, surplus production fed into the grid, and consumption withdrawn from the grid. These differences greatly modify the economic model of a PV production installation. The investment in such installation is no longer compensated by the sale of the entire production at a guaranteed tariff, but by the savings made through self-consumption. For a self-consumer, the proftability of their investment will basically depend on three elements. Firstly, the market price of electricity: the higher the price, the greater the relative savings made by the self-consumer by consuming their own electricity. Secondly, their savings will be higher if they are able to consume as much as possible of their production, which means synchronizing their consumption with their production. Finally, if there is a production surplus that the self-consumer is not able to consume, then the third element of proftability will be the price at which they can sell this electricity. The economic valuation of this surplus can take several forms depending on national regulations. For example, it

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 131 may not be economically valued at all, or valued at the same level as the electricity withdrawn from the grid (net-metering) or at a lower value than the latter (net-billing) (Dufo-López and Bernal-Agustín, 2015). According to economic theory, these different calibrations can create different incentives for the consumer. Net-metering, for example, incentivizes high-volume installations, while total self-consumption (no economic valuation of the surplus) will instead encourage the use of small installations to minimize the surplus. 2.3 Prosumer as the fgure of liberal energy transition Self-consumption is also strongly compatible with the European political project of a liberal energy transition, which places the development of markets at its core as a governing device (Jabko, 2009). It consecrates a new permutation; no longer are there only the “producer-consumer” (Debourdeau, 2011b, p95) and the “investor-producer-individual owner” (Fontaine, 2018, p298) but there is now the self-consumer (prosumer). Hence, self-consumption looks highly compatible with the neoliberal project of self-enterprise as described by Foucault (Lemke, 2001). Applied to electricity, this project considers that the active participation of consumers in the market will help to bring their behaviours closer to the ideal of market operations and, by extension, the electricity system (Levenda et al., 2015). Hence, the rise of prosumers has been presented as a way to improve the fexibility of the electricity system to better integrate renewable energies (Lowitzsch, 2019). The shift to self-consumption, by converting consumers into investors who must make their capital fructify through their behaviours, appears to be a way to bring about a more rational consumer, at the service of the energy transition, although the emergence of this new permutation has so far proved complicated (Grandclément and Nadaï, 2018). 2.4 Diffculties integrating self-consumption into the political economy of the grid While the development of self-consumption is viewed positively by some economics literature, other works have highlighted the risks of its development for the economic equilibrium of the grid. This issue has been documented in scientifc articles (Dufo-López and Bernal-Agustín, 2015; Eid et al., 2014; Percebois, 2015) and some specialized journals, such as the Electricity Journal (Felder and Athawale, 2014; “Murky Policy Conundrum”, 2013). These works were based, among other things, on observations made in countries that have implemented agencements with very open regulations (net-metering) on self-consumption. These economists highlighted a signifcant risk of reducing the grid operators’ revenue, creating a danger of cross-subsidies between self-consumers and ordinary consumers. Indeed, as electricity network tariffs are generally based on

132 Thibaut Fonteneau the volume of electricity consumed, and as self-consumption leads to a decrease in the volume of electricity passing through the grid, the revenues of grid operators fnanced by these levies would decrease. However, this decrease is not necessarily compensated by a decrease in costs for the grid operators. The justifcation for CSC was that its development does not necessarily imply a decrease in peak consumption, the main factor conditioning costs on the grid. In France, this issue has been closely studied by the CRE, with some French economists presenting their fndings in 2017 (Clastres et al., 2019). Furthermore, a report commended by the CRE focused on the growing infrastructure needs that could result from the development of self-consumption and decentralized production, as the

Box B2.1 The electricity network (grid) tariff in France (TURPE) The current structure of the “tariff for the use of public electricity grids” (TURPE by its initials in French) is the result of a sociohistorical process specifc to the French power grid, and is based on the confrontation of two visions (Poupeau, 2007). On one hand, EDF’s marginalist economists advocated a fair refection of costs in the tariff, and therefore differentiation of prices with the idea of mimicking market mechanisms (Yon, 2020). On the other hand, rural elected offcials, supported by the Fédération nationale des collectivités concédantes et régies (FNCCR), pushed for the implementation of redistributive mechanisms at the level of départements16 to avoid disparities between urban and rural areas. This process fnally led to a compromise based on a redistributive mechanism at the national level to ensure a single electricity tariff throughout the country (Poupeau, 2007) while maintaining marginalist principles as the basis for calculation. TURPE, inherited from this background, was introduced in 2000 following the liberalization of the energy market. It combines a nationwide equalization of the tariff with a refection of the costs and benefts of usage. It is broken down into several components, some of which correspond to a fxed amount per user (metering, management). However, the bulk of the tariff still covers the costs of fnancing grid operations and is indexed to the volume of electricity. The introduction of the liberal doctrine in the energy sector has led to the delegation of this tariff setting to an independent agency, the French Energy Regulation Agency (CRE), which generally sets the TURPE for a four-year period. To do this, it relies on consultation with stakeholders while respecting the legal principles: geographical equalization; pricing irrespective of the distance covered by the electricity, known as the “postal stamp” tariff; and pricing based on the subscribed power and energy withdrawn.

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 133 distribution grid would not be suited to receive a large injection of electricity (ECube – Strategy consultants, 2018). This drawback has strongly infused debates on self-consumption in France and was at the heart of the discussions of the 2013 DGEC’s working group. This topic was also central to parliamentary discussions preparing the TECV law in September 2014,15 and subsequently during parliamentary work on the law ratifying the selfconsumption ordinance (Poniatowski, 2017; Santais, 2016). As a result, the regulatory framework put in place in France for so-called ISC refected the desire to control the development of self-consumption. Only the smallest installations beneft from a fxed surplus purchase rate, while larger installations must either go through a call for tender with the government or sell their surplus directly on the market. For projects subject to tender, the existence of a minimum self-consumption rate demonstrates an orientation towards limiting the volume of injection into the grid rather than maximizing the size of PV plants.

3 From individual to collective self-consumption 3.1 Collective self-consumption as a way to rationalize self-consumption The 2017 ordinance introduced the mechanism of “collective self-consumption” (CSC) in addition to “individual self-consumption” (ISC), allowing consumers and producers to share one or more production units in order to collectively self-consume electricity. This emerged from the discussions of the 2013 working group on self-consumption. Proposed in particular by the Hespul association, with input from the SER, it was inspired by experiences in Germany and the Netherlands, and introduced as a more virtuous form of self-consumption than ISC. At the time, the device was described as self-consumption “at the scale of blocks or districts” (DGEC, 2014, p4). It was envisaged as a form of extension of ISC, allowing users to maximize installed power while ensuring a signifcant rate of self-consumption. This would operate at the scale of a “local distribution loop” using a diversity effect17 ( foisonnement). For Hespul, the main risk of ISC in cities was the small size of the installations. While the urban environment is frequently marked by a lack of space for PV panels but a highly available grid, the objective of such district self-consumption was to maximize the size of the installations while ensuring that all the production would be consumed at local loop scale. Formally, the scheme defned in 2017 allowed producers and consumers to exchange electricity using the public distribution grid so long as they were located within a certain perimeter and unifed by the same legal structure. The perimeter was based on a criterion related to the grid structure. Hence, all participants had to be connected to the same MV/LV transformer station, i.e., a node between the high-voltage and low-voltage grid, which meant that

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they were located in the same “pocket” of the distribution grid. The time interval chosen was the same as that of ISC, despite an amendment fled by CLER and Hespul proposing a daily time interval for purposes of simplifcation. The electricity produced would be distributed among the selfconsumers according to an allocation formula to be collectively agreed upon by participants. This formula was to be transmitted to the DSO, who would manage the metering and the transmission to the participants’ respective suppliers. Consequently, CSC offers a different economic framework than ISC. The electricity (self-)consumed in CSC transits among the participants through the public distribution grid. This confguration of the agencement, which frames these fows as transiting through the grid, implies that they are subject to all the taxes and tariffs usually applied to electricity: value-added tax, the public electricity service tax (CSPE), and the network tariff (TURPE). In 2017, therefore, a collective self-consumer had to pay these contributions on the volume of electricity consumed, making the cost to the consumer much higher than with the ISC. 3.2 Collective self-consumption: a promising framework for building various projects In addition to responding to the risks posed by ISC, in particular, its integration into a still highly centralized French electricity system, CSC also stemmed from a growing trend of collectives organizing themselves around energy production. Following on from work conducted in the United Kingdom (Seyfang et al., 2013; Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008), French researchers have highlighted the development of energy cooperatives in France (Wokuri, 2019; Yalçın-Riollet et al., 2014). Although hindered by a rather centralizing culture (Wokuri et al., 2019), the multiplication of this type of initiative around 2010, involving citizens, associations, small and medium enterprises, and local authorities, underwent forms of institutionalization that can be characterized as a form of French localism (Nadaï et al., 2015). Consequently, the notion of “energy communities” has gradually emerged in the French literature to take a fresh look at these initiatives, which revisit the relationship between materiality, social groups, and geographical space that underlies energy systems (Aubert and Souami, 2021; Debizet and Pappalardo, 2021). During the same period, numerous experiments on smart grids (Debizet, 2016), conducted mainly by large companies in the electricity sector, shifted the lines in terms of grid management. They also contributed to the emergence of new business models based on energy services (Rossetto et al., 2019). This dual movement around local political and associative actors on one hand, and national economic stakeholders on the other, also resulted in an evolution of the legislation governing micro-grids, reaffrming the illegality of setting up private grids (Lopez, 2019).

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 135 This context is insightful to understand the great excitement caused by the CSC scheme when it was published in 2017. This opened up new potential for actors wishing to implement different forms of local electricity production and distribution. Three types of confgurations were observed among actors with a strong interest in CSC. There were projects led by local authorities aspiring to self-consume their production in all municipal buildings and share the surplus with local consumers (shops, small businesses, cultural venues). Other projects were led by social housing providers wishing to give their residents access to affordable, green electricity. Finally, there were urban real-estate projects that considered CSC an interesting legal framework to apply to micro-grids. These projects were supported not only by large energy companies but also by small companies or start-ups developing services at the interface between self-consumption groups and the distribution grid.

4 A controversial regulatory framework As mentioned above, the introduction of CSC raised interest among many actors. Those from the above-mentioned groups of “alternative decentralizers” and “moderate decentralizers” (Poupeau, 2020), the PV sector (Enerplan) and some energy incumbents (e.g., Engie) promoted the development of CSC projects. On the other hand, other actors, mainly “historical Jacobins”, were rather suspicious of CSC and aimed to control its development. This section will examine four points of the CSC regulations that were debated between 2017 and 2019. Most of the debates involved clashes between these two opposing factions. 4.1 Counting energy: the choice of a time interval As shown in the literature on self-consumption, the time interval is essential in the economic incentive created by self-consumption. This is, for example, demonstrated in the article by Chatzisideris et al. (2017), which discusses the effects of netting on the proftability of self-consumption solar installations. While the time interval chosen for ISC had not been debated, CSC raised some questions. The choice of a 30-minute interval matched the reference used for the TSO’s “imbalance settlement” between production and consumption. The choice of this time step was thus justifed by its correspondence to the metering methods and processes already in place among the incumbent players of the electricity grid. It was also a suffciently short duration to allow netting effects to be limited. This concern was a response to the fear of negative effects of self-consumption on the grid and a desire for its integration within the electricity system. The aim of a relatively short interval is to ensure that the synchronization between production and consumption is as close as possible to physical reality and therefore implies a minimum interaction between the installation and the grid.

136 Thibaut Fonteneau At the same time, the time interval was championed by some actors as a way to simplify the implementation of CSC projects. For example, an amendment fled by CLER and Hespul proposed the use of a daily time step for CSC. The use of the daily time interval had several justifcations, including the respect for privacy and the simplifcation of energy allocation operations. However, the main argument for the amendment was based on the diversity effect. CSC projects beneft from a diversity of consumption patterns as they share a production source. However, the implementation of a short time step, while more accurately refecting the physical reality of the fows, penalizes participants who consume little during the day in favour of those consuming a large amount. The proposal of a daily time step would therefore allow for more equitable distribution methods insofar as some consumers have very limited fexibility to shift their consumption. This proposed amendment was rejected in favour of a time step identical to that of ISC, refecting the desire to make CSC a system that primarily serves fexibility on the grid and can be controlled by the market, rather than a vehicle to facilitate the creation of energy collectives. Another reason for the rejection is that there was not a strong coalition supporting the daily interval since the use of a short interval also enables fexibility services and precise data management to be developed. It should be borne in mind that CSC has also been advocated as a way of creating a market for energy services. 4.2 Energy allocation formula Scholars have shown that electricity allocation is at the core of the social and power relations inside energy communities (Pappalardo and Debizet, 2020). This question has also been debated at a national level. During the consultation conducted by the CRE, several points were discussed concerning the type of formula that should be implemented to allocate energy. At the time of the consultation, in September 2017, the DSO proposed a static allocation formula by default: each self-consumer would receive a fxed share of the production. The vast majority of stakeholders were then in favour of the DSO setting up a dynamic formula based on consumption. This was later implemented by the DSO and seemed to be a solution that maximized self-consumption while limiting the development work for the self-consumers.18 Although the allocation formula was not highly controversial, a few sticking points are still worth mentioning. One of them was whether or not the DSO should offer other formulas. Some actors (FNCCR and an association of social housing contractors) were in favour of an extended list to facilitate the operations of CSC projects. Other actors (Enerplan, Tecsol,19 Bouygues) were afraid that the proposal of a catalogue of allocation formulas by the DSO would limit the CSC’s power over the allocation. The point is not that these two arguments were held by actors in favour of the development of CSC,

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 137 but rather that the actors were caught between making the agencement easy to use on one hand, and protecting CSC projects from the power of incumbent energy actors on the other. Another divergence in the allocation formula was whether to transmit it to the DSO ex-post or ex-ante. Some actors (EDF, FNCCR, SER) were afraid that ex-post transmission would allow CSC projects to arbitrate between selling electricity and self-consuming it, while other actors pointed out that it was impossible for CSC projects to use their own dynamic formula without sending it ex-post (Direct Energie, Tecsol, Engie, Bouygues). The ability to create their own formula, therefore, had an economic and micro-political rationale for CSC projects. Nonetheless, the creation of allocation formulas is also a major issue in the development of an ACC-related energy service market. As mentioned earlier, the development of energy communities is accompanied by the emergence of new business models at the interface between the grid and these communities. For example, the Sunchain start-up, involved in the Prémian PV project in southern France, used blockchain technology to create an interface between the DSO’s information system and the CSC operation. In France, several such start-ups have positioned themselves in this sector. The creation of an allocation formula is often combined with the provision of an interface for the visualization of energy data or support for project creation. Eventually, it was decided that the DSO would provide a single default formula (in proportion to consumption) and the possibility was left to legal entities to provide ex-post allocations. Nevertheless, this is somewhat complicated as ACC projects have only four days to process the consumption data received from the DSO and send back the allocation. This compromise allows CSC projects to have a user-friendly solution (DSO default allocation formula) while still being able to create their own allocation formula, probably with the help of a service provider. 4.3 Setting a perimeter One central point of the regulations was the perimeter in which CSC could take place. During the 2013–2014 work group discussions, self-consumption was presented, as mentioned, as a way to limit certain undesirable effects of ISC, in particular the signifcant electricity fow upstream of the grid. Therefore, in the law, the design of the perimeter was based on a technical criterion: below a medium-voltage/low-voltage (MV/LV) transformer. Maximizing the rate of self-consumption in a “grid pocket” thus limited these effects of electricity transfer from the low-voltage grid to the middle/ high tension grid. In the interest of optimizing the electrical grid, the CRE was logically highly committed to keeping this perimeter in place. Yet, as soon as the law was published in 2017, many players expressed a desire to increase the size of the perimeter. These claims were expressed primarily in two groups in 2018.

138 Thibaut Fonteneau The frst was a working group organized at the Ministry of the Environment, bringing together all the representatives of the solar industry, and resulting in the plan of measures entitled Place au soleil (support plan for the solar industry). During the group work discussions, Enerplan and the FNCCR jointly raised issues related to the perimeter. It was noted that CSC projects were not always built at the scale of a grid pocket, the most salient example being that of projects led by municipalities. In these CSC projects, solar projects could be installed on buildings with the technical capacity (structure, sunshine, available surface), and this electricity could be consumed in other communal buildings. CSC was allowed to sidestep some legal constraints on private grids, while keeping the symbolic and political value of creating a CSC project on a communal scale. However, even for a municipality of a few thousand inhabitants, the territory could contain several grid pockets. Two buildings that were geographically close (a few hundred meters) could be in different grid pockets and thus could not be included in the same CSC project. The use of CSC as a tool of local energy policy was therefore hindered by regulations based on a technical principle of grid optimization. At the same time, the issue of the perimeter was also addressed in a working group on energy pooling set up by the Industrial Demonstrators for Sustainable Cities20 (DIVD by its initials in French). This program, led by the Urban Planning and Construction Architecture Plan21 (PUCA), mainly involved development projects in urban areas. While the FNCCR and Enerplan brought up issues related to rural or peri-urban territories during the Place au soleil working group, the DIVD working group was an opportunity to raise issues related to urban areas. In this case, high population density led to the multiplication of MV/LV transformer stations. While many consumers could be attached to the same pocket, they could represent a small number of buildings. Therefore, the demonstrators of the DIVD program, which were often deployed at neighbourhood scale, were only able to carry out CSC projects at the scale of several buildings. This limitation went against the objective of energy pooling in this program. The actors present also argued that taking into account a larger perimeter would have a benefcial effect in allocating the investment between multiple actors, and thus mitigate the lack of proftability of this type of project. The issues discussed in these two spaces went all the way up to the offce of the Minister of Ecology. The minister, anxious to support the development of CSC, without having control over taxes and network tariffs, proposed the extension of the perimeter. The CRE, which was initially opposed to the extension of the perimeter, fnally agreed to the possibility of extending it for an experimental period. The scope was fnally modifed in the PACTE law. It is now defned as being based on a geographical criterion and is set at two kilometres by ministerial order. Finally, the issue was clarifed by the Energy and Climate Act of 8 November 2019. The act defnes a default perimeter at the scale of the “building”, submitting the so-called “extended”

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 139 perimeter of the CSC to a ministerial order. This extended perimeter has been set at two kilometres but can be opened up to 20, with a derogation from the ministry in areas with a low population density. There is still some uncertainty about the scale at which CSC can take place since the extended perimeter set by decree can easily be limited or extended. The uncertainty surrounding the setting of this perimeter demonstrates the importance of this regulatory issue. As shown, setting the perimeter can frame CSC projects very differently, whether they are seen as a tool for optimizing production and consumption in a network pocket or as one for enabling political, urban or real-estate projects, or a combination of both. 4.4 Adapting existing taxes and levies Finally, we conclude our overview with the main bone of contention regarding CSC, namely, the adaptation of the network tariff (TURPE). When the regulatory framework for CSC was published in 2017, it quickly became apparent that the economic model was not proftable. Both CSC and ISC schemes were defned at the same time and had the same name. The comparison between both showed that the difference in proftability was based on the levies (taxes and network tariffs) applied to collectively consumed fows. Although some actors argued for a decrease or an exemption from other taxes on electricity consumption, network tariff adaptation was the most debated subject. After the 2017 law, the CRE launched a consultation on CSC and ISC with the aim of infuencing the adaptation of the grid to the new schemes. Many actors in favour of CSC expected that the CRE would publish a “micro-TURPE” to help increase the proftability of CSC projects, especially in the wake of political announcements made by the government and members of parliament. While the law stipulated that the CRE would set up a specifc tariff for collective self-consumers, parliamentarians referred in their debates to the introduction of a “micro-TURPE” (Poniatowski, 2017, p10; Santais, 2016, p8). This expectation was heightened by the fact that ISC and CSC were discussed at the same time, making it diffcult to know if the MPs were speaking about one or the other. The actors supporting a micro-TURPE (Enerplan, SER, Hespul, FNCCR, Social Housing Union)22 relied on the assumption that collectively self-consumed fows had a limited impact on the grid. From their point of view, CSC fows travelled a short distance between the place of production and the place of consumption, thus limiting losses. Taking into account this positive factor, according to them a micro-TURPE for collective selfconsumers would have been a way to support the development of new projects perceived as positive for society. The main proposal headed by the FNCCR was to create a “green stamp” tariff, in reference to the stamp tariffcation principle (see Box B2.1) that lowered the charge on the volume of self-consumed electricity and kept the regular charge for electricity consumed from the grid. Those opposed to the micro-TURPE (EDF, unions,

140 Thibaut Fonteneau Enedis, UFE) highlighted the uncertainty of the lower cost of collectively consumed fows for the grid. They pointed out that losses related to distance travelled represented only a small part of grid costs. On the contrary, as some indicated, the allocation of CSC fows could lead to additional management costs for the DSO. However, the main concern was that creating an exception to the TURPE would set a precedent and undermine the stability of the principles at the core of the network tariff (see Box B2.1). Finally, the CRE proposed a specifc, but optional, tariff for collective self-consumers that lowered the charge on the volume of self-consumed electricity but increased the charge on electricity consumed from the grid. In the eyes of the CRE, with the uncertainty surrounding the cost reductions linked to CSC, the tariff could not be lowered on self-consumed electricity without being increased on that consumed from the grid. A micro-TURPE would have constituted a disguised support mechanism, which the regulator refused to put in place, preferring explicit support methods that can be more easily quantifed and controlled. Furthermore, excessive differentiation of tariffs in favour of a certain type of consumer, especially for consumers benefting from a specifc geographical location, such as lying within the perimeter of a CSC operation, could be interpreted as attacking the political and economic basis of the tariff. Therefore, while this refusal to set up a micro-TURPE could be interpreted as a strict application of tariff regulation rules, the debates on the TURPE for CSC have raised a much more fundamental question: the perpetuation of a centralized grid and its refection in a unitary tariff at national level. In an article in Le Monde, the chairman of the CRE pointed out that departing from the principles governing the tariff could lead to a form of “energy communitarianism”.23 Using the term “communitarianism”, which has strong connotations in the French political context, was a way of reaffrming the unifying role of the grid and its tariff agencement at the very heart of the “nation”,24 or the republic. The chairman thus set the national community at loggerheads with local energy communities, implying that the latter could jeopardize the existence of the former. While this position is highly representative of the historical Jacobinism described by Poupeau (2020), it seems to be increasingly contested. Ironically, this question is addressed in a report published by the CRE’s Foresight Committee, which summarizes the issue rather explicitly: Is it relevant to have a system coexistence whereby energy production and distribution costs will be increasingly different between territories, but revenues and prices will be pooled or homogenized at the national level? If so, how should it be organized? (Comité de prospective de la CRE, 2019, p9) Actors such as FNCCR, historically defending tariff equalization as a way to protect rural territories, were among the frst to put forward a

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 141 micro-TURPE that would maintain the political principles of the tariff. Moreover, the DSO, which was initially cautious towards CSC, has been increasingly positive about it, supporting a perimeter extension and collaborating more and more closely with CSC projects.25

5 Conclusion Self-consumption offers a new way of framing the exchange of electricity. By replacing existing arrangements such as the FiT, self-consumption is redefning the way decentralized PV electricity is economically framed. Selfconsumption allows the integration of overfow, including the need for increased fexibility vis-à-vis demand. The introduction of CSC is original in that it adds a collective and local dimension to self-consumption. Its emergence was driven by the citizen and political movements that arose around energy cooperatives, as well as by the development of smart grids and the willingness of new actors to enter the local management of the electricity grid. In France, CSC has been presented as a more virtuous system than ISC by correcting certain deviations, such as the multiplication of small installations. Furthermore, it has responded to the expectations of many actors (citizens, politicians, lessors, companies) wishing to organize themselves collectively around one or more sources of electrical production. As this research shows, the adjustments of the regulations governing CSC reveal a tension between the will to use CSC as a fexibility and optimization tool for the grid, and the desire to employ it as a mechanism for the emergence of energy projects with political, social, and economic implications. While these two aims are not necessarily incompatible, they open a debate on the scale at which the arrangement is designed to operate. As demonstrated in this study, the main confict between these two visions is that one (grid optimization) refers to a national scale, while the other (enabling projects) is embedded in local considerations. Finding a way to reconcile these two approaches will certainly be at the heart of the discussions in the years to come.

Acknowledgements This work has been partially supported by the Cross-Disciplinary Program Eco-SESA receiving fund from the French National Research Agency in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02). The author would also like to warmly thank Clare St Lawrence and Gilles Debizet for their help that contributed to greatly improve the quality of this text.

Notes 1 Loi relative à transition énergétique pour la croissance verte (TECV) is a law ratifed in August 2015 and that has implemented numerous changes in the landscape of energy policies in France.

142 Thibaut Fonteneau 2 Tarif d’utilisation des réseaux public d’électricité (TURPE), Tariff for the Use the Public Electricity Network (or network tariff or grid tariff). This is the tariff paid by every consumer or producer using the public power grid. 3 Electricité de France (EDF) is the historical and biggest French electricity company, mainly owned by the state. 4 Réseau de Transport d’Electricit (RTE, Electricity Transmission Network) is the French transmission system operator. It is fully owned by EDF but has been legally separated from it following European rules on unbundling. 5 Enedis is the French distribution system operator. It is also fully owned by EDF but has been legally separated from it following European rules on unbundling. 6 Confédération générale des travailleurs, General Confederation of Labour, a powerful union in France. 7 Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (ADEME), now Agence de la transition écologique, agency for ecological transition is a public agency under the authority of the Ministry for an Ecological Transition and the Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It was created in 1992 as the successor of another agency focused on energy savings and created in the context of the oil crisis of 1973. 8 Comité de liaison énergies renouvelables (CLER), renewable energy liaison committee, an NGO advocating the development of renewable energies at the local level. 9 Direction générale de l’énergie et du climat (DGEC), General Directorate for Energy and Climate Action, a central administrative body under the supervision of the Ministry of Ecology (now Ministry of Ecological Transition). 10 Fédération nationale des collectivités concédantes et régies (FNCCR), National Federation of Public Local Authorities responsible for public services, is an association representing the interests of local authorities that own electricity distributing networks and must delegate their management to Enedis. Historically, the FNCCR is dominated by representatives of rural territories. 11 Syndicat des énergies renouvelables (SER), French Renewable Energy Trade Association, the main interest group defending the interests of industrial and professional renewable energy. 12 Commission de régulation de l’énergie (CRE), the French Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent public agency created in 2000 that ensures the correct operating of electricity and gas markets in France. 13 One of these projects has been described in a report by Verde and Rosseto (2020). 14 Contribution au service public de l’électricité (CSPE), the Public Service Electricity Obligation is a levy on electricity consumption paid by every consumer. Introduced in 2003, it was used to compensate for the cost bared by EDF to buy green electricity, as the company was obligated to buy the electricity produced by plants benefting from feed-in tariffs. The CSPE was reformed in 2015. It is now set at a fxed level (i.e., 22.5 €/MWh) and integrated into the national budget. 15 These discussions can be consulted online: http://www.assemblee-nationale. fr/14/cr-cstransenerg/13-14/c1314008.asp#P6_298, http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cr-cstransenerg/13-14/c1314006.asp#P6_372, http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cr-cstransenerg/13-14/c1314003.asp#P6_506. 16 Départments are an intermediate type of administrative and political division in France that stands between the bigger régions and the smaller communes. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and fve overseas departments. 17 The concept of diversity (“foisonnement” in French) refers to the fact that the aggregation of diverse consumption profles on the electrical grid has a smoothing effect on the total consumption curve: not all maximal consumption will occur at the same time. Considering this effect, the grid is not sized

Controversies on collective self-consumption in France 143

18

19 20

21 22 23

24 25

to cover the sum of the maximal power of every consumer at any time, but at a lower value. The formula is based on this principle: for each half-hour interval, each self-consumer is allocated a share of the production that matches their share in the total consumption of the group. For example, if the consumption of self-consumer A represents 20% of the total consumption of the group, they will be assigned a 20% share of the production. This share is recalculated every 30 minutes. Tecsol is a solar engineering frm that has been involved in several CSC projects. This frm is also very infuential within Enerplan. Démonstrateurs industriels pour la ville durable, Industrial Demonstrators for Sustainable Cities is a program created in 2015 and piloted by the French government and the PUCA (see below), to foster collaboration between local authorities and industrial actors on sustainable cities. Plan urbanisme construction architecture, Planning and Construction Architecture Plan is an interministerial body created in 1998 to stimulate research and innovation in the housing construction sector. Union Sociale pour l’Habitat, Social Housing Union is an association grouping 730 social housing associations and is the main representative body for the social housing sector in France. See “Jean-François Carenco: Il y a désormais trop d’acteurs dans l’électricité” in Le Monde, 27 octobre 2018, available at: https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/ article/2018/10/26/il-y-a-desor mais-trop -d-acteurs-sur-le-marche-de-lelectricite-en-france_5374805_3234.html. See the opening speech of the CRE chairman at the CRE’s self-consumption workshops, available at: http://autoconsommation.cre.fr/live.html. For the DSO, CSC also became a way of promoting the installation of the Linky smart meter that has faced opposition since its implementation.

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Section C: Introduction

Citizen cooperatives Inter-scalar idealizing, teaching and structuring for scaling up Section B explored a form of energy community well identifed in the regulation of several countries: that of collective self-consumption of electricity. In this third section, the chapters analyse another form of community: citizen energy cooperatives. While the Enercoop cooperative was created in opposition to nuclear power to allow consumers to buy exclusively renewable electricity, regardless of its geographical origin, its transformation into a network of regional cooperatives has been a success. This network has the effect of spatially bringing together the production of renewable energy and consumption (Maître) as do the local and citizen cooperatives observed by Gomez, Tyl and Pottier. In a similar vein, there are the more hybrid forms of citizen-public-private projects described by Artis, Ballon, Litvine, Dias and Blangy. These three forms of citizen action differ from the collectives implementing collective self-consumption operations, in their relationship to the market, methods of recruiting members and governance. While collective self-consumption is constrained by geographical limits imposed by law, the chapters in this section deal with new organizations that have chosen to position themselves on a local or regional scale. They claim territoriality as a reaction to large frms and their priority objective of proft (Artis et al.). Modes of governance are analysed by the contributors to this section. Decision-making by consent or by consensus (Maître) guarantees these cooperative organizations a strong ideological solidity, which prevents their distortion for the beneft of market logics. Overall, the authors show how these characteristics are perpetuated and intertwined with the institutional trajectories of citizen cooperatives, such as the regionalization of the national supply cooperative (Maître) and the national networking of local production cooperatives.

Chapter C1. Trajectories of renewable energy communities: Between democratic processes and economic constraints, by Armelle Gomez, Benjamin Tyl and Aude Pottier Armelle Gomez, Benjamin Tyl and Aude Pottier present an analysis of the trajectories of French renewable energy production cooperatives. In their DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-11

150 Section C Introduction: Citizen cooperatives analysis, they note the emergence of the citizen as a new fgure in energy production. This implies the implementation of new dynamics of territorialization, which produce a new “socio-technical order” (Labussière, 2019).1 To reveal the dynamics of the involvement and participation of the members of citizen projects, the authors bring to bear the sociology of conventions as a way to understand the strategies, arrangements and tensions that guide members’ actions. They analyse four local cooperatives located in the French region of Nouvelle Aquitaine and members of the national network, Energie Partagée. This network supports the creation of local cooperatives and renewable energy production projects not only technically and fnancially but also from an ethical stance, advocating transparent governance and anchoring in the territories. For example, the choice between public and private roofs is guided by ownership issues and the possibility of return on investment. Tensions then arise between fnancial participation and the expected involvement of members in the decision-making process; this is where the citizen’s nature of the projects is revealed in all its complexity. Another example of tension relates to the spatial perimeter of the cooperative’s action: the economic interest in expanding the perimeter clashes with the desire to restrict the places of production to those of residence – and consumption – of the cooperative members. The authors discuss the question of investment, understood in the polysemic sense of the term, as both fnancial participation and voluntary involvement in the development of one’s own territory.

Chapter C2. Emergence and transformation of Enercoop: The French network of electricity supply cooperatives as a new social economy initiative, by Rémi Maître Questions of institutionalization and democracy based on citizens’ experiences are also explored in Rémi Maître’s chapter, which discusses the development of the French network Enercoop. The author explores a fundamental question of interest to all citizen experiments: how can the cooperative network institutionalize and develop without giving up its democratic ambitions? By combining sociological and economical approaches, Maître deals with participation in decision-making by members and employees, along with the processes leading to the institutionalization of what has become the Enercoop cooperative network. In the frst part of the chapter, the author presents the creation of the Enercoop network in the context of the liberalization of the French electricity market. The network is seen in the light of the “new social economy”, in other words, an economy that, through self-organized collective practices, can respond to collective needs not met by the public or private sectors (Prades, 2012). The analysis exposes the tensions between the instituting and the instituted. On the one hand, the “instituting” embodies the transformative capacity and ambition of new social economy groups, where actors build their action around a claim, an

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unmet need or the desire to carry certain values. On the other hand, the “instituted” refects the need, for any group wishing to survive, to engage in forms of institutionalization that could distort and divert it from its primary objective. Since the original national cooperative, Enercoop, was created to counter the lack of transparency and participation in French energy policy, the nature of its governance is a central issue in the development of this network. In the second section, the author traces the history of the Enercoop network, outlining its three major characteristics: positioning as a competitive supplier, industrial policy and organizational structure. First, Enercoop sells electricity at a higher price than the market price, with the aim of reducing consumption by encouraging more sober behaviour. Secondly, Enercoop guarantees the “renewable” origin of the electricity. The ideological refusal to sell nuclear electricity distinguishes it from other renewable energy suppliers. Finally, based on the concept of holacracy, its horizontal governance calls for and values the individual participation of members. Along with its deconcentration into regional cooperatives, Enercoop fosters the territorialization of member recruitment and synergies of action with the production cooperatives of the Energie Partagée network. Thus, the author shows how the Enercoop network transcends its internal tensions to develop without deviating from its principles.

Chapter C3. Cooperation within and the institutionalization of participatory renewable energy projects in France: A focus on co-developed citizen, public and private partnership projects, by Amélie Artis, Justine Ballon, Dorian Litvine, Émilie Dias and Sylvie Blangy The chapter by Amélie Artis, Justine Ballon, Dorian Litvine, Émilie Dias and Sylvie Blangy explores another facet of citizen mobilization around renewable energy production. Their methodology combines qualitative, quantitative and participatory research (action research) in proximity with the French network of production cooperatives, Energie Partagée, mentioned in the previous chapters. In the frst part, the authors set out to defne a specifc form of energy project involving three categories of actors: residents’ groups, local authorities and private industrial developers, called citizen-public-private projects. The three categories share the costs of implementation and operation of the project, and grant themselves the right to intervene directly in its governance. Citizen-public-private projects are different from projects strictly run by citizen cooperatives. They require greater fnancial participation, face more obstacles in terms of acceptability and are mostly wind projects. The second part addresses the institutionalization of such energy communities, which are innovative and still a minority in France. The analysis of the processes, based on socio-economic data and a historical context, highlights the opening of a feld of opportunity for citizen-public-private

152 Section C Introduction: Citizen cooperatives hybrid projects, brought about by the institutionalization of citizen production cooperatives. Finally, an analysis based on the regimes of Boltanski and Thévenot’s (1991) theory of justifcation qualifes the actors’ arguments during their negotiations and collaborations. It highlights the strong transformative power of citizen-public-private projects as open spaces of negotiation and compromise, thus, contributing to energy democracy.

C.1 Trajectories of renewable energy communities Between democratic processes and economic constraints Armelle Gomez, Benjamin Tyl and Aude Pottier 1 Introduction Renewable energy communities refer to a heterogeneous set of experiences, which see individual citizens and collective stakeholders, public or private, involved in the design, fnancing or management of such structures (Rüdinger, 2016; 2019). Characterized by a relative technical complexity, both fnancial and material, these projects have seen their number increase between 2010 to reach the fgure of 256 (labelled projects) in 2020. Nevertheless, they represent less than 1% of the production of renewable energy.2 If this phenomenon occupies so much space in the academic and political spheres, it is because it highlights controversies within the sector. The fgure of the “citizen”, acting within renewable energy communities initiated and controlled by local actors, has intruded into a historically locked sector. In addition to the very sensitive issue of nuclear energy in the debates on energy transitions (Aykut and Evrard, 2017), two major currents of thought clash: the liberal school and the critical school (Tarhan, 2017). The former insists on the importance of fnancial levers to initiate a movement based on individual consumer motivations (Cacciari, 2018) while the latter enjoins a disruption of the social architecture (Lopez, 2019) for the defnition and appropriation of a new socio-technical order (Labussière, 2019). In the feld, discourses and practices coexist. This research focuses on four structures that, beyond the initial common project combining environmental issues and local development, have made choices in their operations and objectives. The aim here is not to create a typology of initiatives (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008; Sebi and Vernay, 2020), but to describe and illustrate the tensions that may arise in each of the structures studied between political choices and economic constraints. We will keep the notion of citizenship, which refers to the mechanisms that make it exist, as a common thread in our refection (Scherer, M’baye, and Ainio, 2016). A project is qualifed as “citizen”3 when the territorial authorities act as a promoter or partner, as representatives of the inhabitants of a territory. But a second meaning refers to a more direct and active action of individuals who will participate in the creation and management of these

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renewable energy production structures (Rudinger, 2019). But this participation is not self-evident: few stakeholders are ready to become intensively involved in a project and bear the fnancial risks. Apart from the voluntary involvement of a few highly motivated individuals (sometimes, but rarely, as employees), the majority of members act as shareholders and/or roof lessors. It is therefore through the mobilization of their fnancial capital (savings) or material capital (owning a property) that the “citizen” is interested in participating and, paradoxically, without any fnancial compensation being paid. In order to address this issue of the involvement of individuals and public structures in renewable energy production initiatives, this research was conducted using a qualitative approach based on ffteen semi-structured interviews with members of four companies and of local authorities. The organizations were chosen according to the project’s stage of development (beyond the emergence phase) and the theory of regulation was used as the lens of analysis. This grid allows us to consider that actions are necessarily carried out within determined frameworks, in this case, the deployment of initiatives within the framework of public policies working through “a framing of markets considered inseparably as ends and means” (Debourdeau, 2011). But within such initiatives, actors are not only prisoners of these determined frameworks, but they also challenge them. We will therefore focus on the discourse of the people interviewed about their involvement in these structures, highlighting the reference points in terms of social practices and shared conventions around energy as a lever for action from and for the territories. The frst part presents the framework of our research, both from a contextual point of view - the renewable energy communities - and from an empirical and epistemological point of view. The second and third parts describe the different tensions that are concretely expressed between a desire for citizen structure and an economic necessity.

2 Renewable energy communities in multiple forms: from defnition to the research feld 2.1 The legislative framework: the renewable energy communities The investment of individual or collective actors in renewable energies refers to very diverse participation modalities and organizational forms (Rüdinger, 2016; Servalos, 2020). At an individual level, Bauwens (2016) shows that adhesion to this type of approach refers to two main types of motivations: motivations based on personal interest or moral reasons. The latter may be the basis of entry for some individuals while others will become aware of them as they understand the conditions and effects of these projects. Nevertheless, if Yildiz (2014) underlines the conceptual weakness of “citizen participation”, an expression often used in the feld of renewable

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 155 energies, these structures, even if they do not have the statutes, most often function on the model of cooperatives of the social and solidarity economy and donations, on the principle of “one man = one vote”, regardless of the number of shares held. It is only recently that they have been included in a specifc legislative framework. A “renewable energy community”4 can thus produce, consume, store and sell renewable energy, including through renewable energy purchase agreements. Despite an attempt to characterize these companies, the contours are vague, to say the least, and the factors favouring “citizen” participation by shareholders remain poorly documented. 2.2 The empirical framework: a research based on four case studies The research work focused on four “Sociétés par Actions Simplifées” (SAS, French simplifed Joint Stock company). We chose to establish our sample among the members federated within the Nouvelle Aquitaine network for renewable energy communities (CIRENA). Indeed, each project accepts the Charter of the Energie Partagée movement, an association and participatory fnancing platform, a national player in the promotion of renewable energy production by “citizen companies”. As such, members can claim technical and fnancial support from public authorities. This charter implies the implementation of a certain number of actions aiming to go beyond the simple framework of energy production. It commits the holders to respect several commitments, of an ecological, economic, social but also democratic nature by the implementation of “transparent and clear modes of governance” and “participative and autonomous local governance of the projects in particular through the partnership with the local authorities”.5 Two main variables were used to select the projects: the type of energy developed and the stage of development. Given the differences in the time frame for the implementation of each technique and the overrepresentation of structures developing photovoltaic projects, the choice naturally fell on entities developing this type of infrastructure and whose state of progress was similar. These case studies were approached qualitatively, through semi-directive interviews: I-ENER (Agglomération Pays Basque), Soleil de l’Yssandonnais (L’Yssandonnais, Corrèze), OSS17 (Ile d’Oléron) and Citoyenne Solaire (Rilhac-Lastours, Limousin). These initiatives were chosen according to their differences: the number of shareholders (from a very small number to the largest structure of the network in terms of members), the presence of public actors (according to a gradation going from a strong involvement to their non-existence), the geography (from the proximity of an urban pole to the rurality while passing by an island) crossed with the political dimension of the territories (from a very strong cultural imprint to a fragmented space). The main characteristics of the structures studied are described in Figure C1.1.

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Territory: Agglomération Pays Basque

Creation: Oct. 2014

No. of shareholders: 510

No. of projects: 16 Status: SAS

Territory: Rilhac-Lastours

Creation: Dec. 2016

No. of shareholders: 90

No. of projects: 176 Status: SAS

Territory: Ile d’Oléron

Creation: April 2018

No. of shareholders: 184

No. of projects: 3 Status: SAS

Territory: L’Yssandonnais

Creation: Feb. 2017

No. of shareholders: 26

No. of projects: 26

Local authorities (partners) and shareholders

Local authorities (partners) and shareholders

Local authorities on their own initiative and shareholders as partners

Without local authorities as partners

Figure C1.1 Structures in New Aquitaine studied in this research (2019)

2.3 The epistemological framework: regulations and conventions for the analysis of citizen dynamics After a frst phase of exploratory investigation carried out in 2018 with ten “shareholders” of the same company,6 an interview grid was developed to conduct 15 semi-structured interviews in four structures. The feld was approached from the perspective of comprehensive sociology (Charmillot and Dayer, 2007). It positions the researcher’s analysis from the point of view of the actors: the words they use, the references they invoke, etc. The present study is situated at the crossroads of two theoretical frameworks constructed and carried by researchers from two felds: economics and sociology. This double entry seems to us congruent with the logic of individual and collective actions during the creation and development of these initiatives, with social, political and economic characteristics. The theory of regulation aims to go beyond the classical framework of economical orthodoxy (Boyer, 2017) by relativizing the postulates of rationality of decisions and situations of equilibrium in markets, preferring instead hypotheses of limited rationality, the existence of “collective cognitive devices” or “third-party regulators”. Transposed into the feld of sociology, it allows us to highlight the way in which rules, whether formal or informal, are produced, maintained or destroyed within organizations, given that these norms are the result (or the condition) of external regulations (Reynaud, 1988). Thus, whatever the will and the discourse of the actors, activities of this nature are carried out in a global regime whose “macroinstitutional foundations [are those] of a market economy” (Boyer, 2003). The case of energy is particularly interesting. With reference to Germany,

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 157 “an ‘ordoliberal governmentality’ in which the market is the main organizer and regulator of the state’s modes of existence and actions” (Debourdeau, 2011) will condition the organization and legal forms taken by the structures carrying energy alternatives. The actors will then deploy practices and justifcations relating to the quality of the citizen within the frameworks of private companies that emphasize individual logic and interest. We will study here the trajectories of these four structures through the individuals that compose them. Founded on a common base of renewable energy production on a territorial basis, they must face tensions between political will and economic constraints.

3 Poorly rewarded capital for the development of renewable energies First, if the mobilization of the inhabitants of a territory is carried out through the lever of shareholding, their commitment is carried out according to a collective and political project. From this point of view, those who get involved as “simple” citizens or citizen-electors are not driven by the logic of individual interest. However, the mechanisms put in place raise questions about the “social accessibility” of these structures, i.e., the fnancial ability of citizens to participate to renewable energy communities. 3.1 Amount, remuneration and number of shares 3.1.1 The amount of the share: can all citizens participate? In three of the initiatives studied, the nominal value of the share is €1 but the minimum number of shares has been set at 50. The question of the minimum price, which is not a compulsory mention in the statutes of an SAS, remains a relative unthought within these cooperatives. It is more the democratic and individual expression that interests the members: the power of decision is always decorrelated to the amount invested in the company. Only Soleil de l’Yssandonnais has set the share price at €250. This choice refers to the origin of the citizen society which, having not found a public relay nor tried to recruit widely on the territory, gave itself for objective the realization of fve roofs (at least for a frst period). The amount was decided in relation to the cost of the projects and the economic availability of the people involved. Finding shareholders was easy, we didn’t need many because there was the bank loan (…). There are 25 shareholders because, if we had 25, we would receive a subsidy of 25 times 250 euros by the Region. So we found 25 shareholders. (I.V., Soleil de l’Yssandonnais)

158 Armelle Gomez et al. Thus, the way in which the share price is determined (foor amount at €50 and ceiling amount at €250) can lead to two hypotheses. The frst could be defned in these terms: the fact of investing a relatively large sum reveals a high level of commitment. But a second option seems more likely: the citizen energy companies were originally composed by members whose sociological profle places them in the affuent categories of the population (Taranis, and Energies citoyennes en Pays de la Loire, 2018, quoted in Sebi and Vernay, 2020; Servalos, 2020) and will, in spite of themselves, operate a selection process among the citizens who get involved (Hamman and Christen, 2017).7 3.1.2 The remuneration of the share: are we a citizen or an investor? The SAS status, resulting from the law of modernization of 4 August 2008, which was chosen by the four structures studied in this research, is characterized by a very fexible functioning with rules that can be modifed at any time. This status can thus authorize the distribution of profts to be decided at the general assembly (like the status of I-ENER, which specifes that the distributable proft is at the disposal of the general assembly in order, on the proposal of the president, to be distributed, in whole or in part, among the shares as a dividend, allocated to all reserve or capital depreciation accounts, or carried forward). When it is not written down, this question has often already been the subject of discussion: Ayen is just one year, two years in operation. There are fve roofs that have been done on private roofs, a small remuneration of the lessors is foreseen, we will have to see what they allocate the surplus to. […] I think that this refection of the allocation will come. I will propose to continue investing in energy development. (J.P.F., Soleil d’Yssandonnais) But other members of Soleil de l’Yssandonnais will rather consider this participation as a reimbursement of the initial investment: Each share is worth 250 euros and is remunerated and in ffteen years all shares will be paid off…. (I.V., Soleil d’Yssandonnais) Three ways of allocation are mentioned: distribution of dividends to shareholders, fnancing of other photovoltaic projects and fnancing of other actions (in the energy feld or in other sectors). However, at the time of the survey, the structures analysed are relatively young and have not yet

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 159

Figure C1.2 Principle of fnancing a renewable project: the bank repayment phase for investors (Source: Energie Partagée).8

produced an economic surplus. As Figure C1.2 from the Energie Partagée website explains, it is only after the tenth year that the question really arises. In our sample, the oldest company, I-ENER, is six years old and is the only one in which the management committee is divided on the question of dividend payments. The others are already planning to pay limited interest to shareholders: There is this concern not to make money but that people don’t lose the money, that’s a very important concern. I think that an entrepreneurial, respectful framework that also makes people earn money (rather than putting their money in the Credit Agricole bank) is not widespread enough in our territory […] We thought it was normal to rent the roofs not at too high a rent. (J.P., Soleil d’Yssandonnais) OSS17 has even set a time limit beyond which shareholders can receive dividends: We have to be proftable but the profts will be paid back to the shareholders after three years, it will be about 1% of the dividends. (B.C., OSS17) Although it is not possible to know today the behaviour of the actors regarding the payment or not of their social shares, we formulate the following

160 Armelle Gomez et al. hypothesis. The emergence of such projects relies on recruitment from among “activists” who are also multi-invested in territorial projects. Would not new shareholders be more likely to participate if and only if they received dividends? In Germany, members who have been involved in the management of an energy cooperative for a long time deplore the fact that the logic of individual proft-sharing has gradually taken precedence over the principle of general interest (Blanchet and Herzberg, 2019). 3.1.3 The number of shares: fnancial power and political power The SAS companies fx a ceiling of shares that can be held by the members. This ceiling allows to keep a horizontal functioning and to avoid “money blackmail”: There was a maximum share, that is to say that there was the will of the SAS not to have one person invest too much in the SAS and become the majority, etc., to ensure that the project remains collective and participative […]. So each person could not invest more than 5,000 euros to avoid the majority being taken by a single person and directing the SAS: there was a desire to keep the collective functioning. (C.L., Soleil de l’Yssandonnais) a single shareholder cannot hold more than 20% of the capital. We don’t want a shareholder with too much money to engage in negotiation processes, to infuence, by threatening to withdraw his money. (C.B., OSS17) The entry into the capital of the community, for sums that far exceed the individual capacity, raises debates among elected offcials. They are concerned about the legitimacy of a public actor’s fnancial participation in a private company. But they also refer to the question of control of a strategic sector: can we leave the control of renewable energies and their governance in the hands of citizens and not of public actors? It is one of the few places where politics can go [that] could be a real economic and autonomy project. […] The community, with its weight, if we put people from the economy in this public action, it can become a real tool for development. (MB, elected representative, Agglomération Pays Basque) Echoing the analysis of the Iena case in Germany (Blanchet and Herzberg, 2019), the question of renewable energy refers to the political sovereignty of a territory. The fact that they are taken over by collectives, which may include consulting frms, investment funds or small SMEs and clashes with models of democratic representation.

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 161 3.2 The choice of roofs and the question of their remuneration 3.2.1 The choice of public or private roofs: between opportunities and considered decisions The equipped roofs can be private and/or public and access to them depends essentially on the position of the municipalities and inter-municipalities with respect to the project. Local authorities, and sometimes public institutions such as National Parks, can play an important role as catalysts, disseminating information and reinforcing the current dynamics, but this is not a determining factor either. SAS Soleil d’Yssandonnais approached municipalities that did not approve the approach and refused access to their buildings. The citizens’ collective has therefore chosen to install the panels only on private roofs. The public actor is not interested in the project. In Ayen there are only two elected representatives who are interested. We have elected representatives who are not interested in environmental issues, even though Ayen has twice won the title of Agenda 21, it is paradoxical […] We went to see at least three other municipalities, with whom it did not go further than a handshake. With hindsight, perhaps we were not able to interact with the municipalities: here we work with private owners, who are also subscribers, it’s like a little family, it’s reassuring in a way. (J.P., Soleil de l’Yssandonnais) It is therefore a choice by default, due to the lack of support from local public authorities. But this eclipse can be voluntary. This is the case of OSS 17, initiated by elected representatives, to mobilize residents around the production of renewable energy on private roofs - while the municipalities equip public roofs. For us, […] it’s an interesting tool to develop photovoltaic on private property, that’s clear, […], in addition to the fact that it’s citizens who get involved, it also allows us to talk about the problems of sustainable development, climate change, and the development of RE. Involving citizens also has all these advantages. (P.L., OSS17) However, the community remains present: a modifcation of the urban plans encourages the municipalities to plan the installation of photovoltaic panels on the roofs of new commercial buildings. La Citoyenne Solaire works mainly on private roofs. However, it has not signed up for this exclusivity: We don’t have a public/private preference. We have communities or individuals who contact us, we study their roofs and today we have 5… 6

162 Armelle Gomez et al. public roofs out of 17 and 11 private roofs. People hear about us, are interested in the process, they call us and we study the roof, we have no selection criteria. (V.C., La Citoyenne Solaire) Finally, I-ENER, on the other hand, has chosen to operate only on public roofs, justifed primarily by strategic communication reasons… It is interesting for two reasons, economically - the economic viability of the project - and interesting to have three roofs on three municipalities than three roofs on one municipality because, and this is the argument that I brought quite strong at the beginning to justify the public roofs, besides the motivation of the elected offcials and the municipality can easily help us in the organization of the public meetings, some send the leafets in the houses and ask us nothing except to prepare the leafet so for us it is comfortable notably to touch the inhabitants. …but also of neutrality towards the inhabitants… And then, if we do the roof of a private person, it can be quickly interpreted by people as “but he has an interest, we pay him this, he is this etc.” and we do not know enough people to know the image that we will send by going to their house. […] how do we do it if tomorrow we have thirty requests? What criteria do we use to choose the ones and the others? …and partisan logic I personally fnd that this elected offcial who gave us the opportunity, allowed us to highlight that the public roof for these reasons, it is simpler. It is a neutral building, because we cannot say that there is a PS or UMP mayor,9 except in the big cities, there is no risk of recovery in the partisan sense. Hendaye was socialist and then it’s an abertzale,10 we did everything. (M.I., I-ENER) 3.2.2 Lessors’ remuneration: between donation and reimbursement of the investment Then, there is the question of the remuneration of the lessors. This varies from one company to another. I-ENER, for example, signs rental leases with communities for a symbolic amount of €1 per year. The other structures provide for both fxed and variable remuneration, equivalent to a share of the income generated by each installation throughout the year. The owners of the roofs have the choice: either we pay them the rent for 20 years, we know that the power station will produce so much so the lease

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 163 will be so much. That in the frst year or every year. To make it more impactful, we pay the full amount because it is derisory. For example, for a 9 kg plant, we will pay 1200 € over 20 years. It is derisory. The larger the size, the more interesting it is. (M.A., Citoyenne Solaire) Sometimes, the lessors can decide to receive this remuneration in the form of shares of the company itself. In any case, these are very modest remunerations. “It is a very small rent, 100 euros per year […]. We thought it was normal to rent the roofs not at too high a rent … we like the lessors to be subscribers, the shares cost 250 euros each, they are not given, but 250 euros is also the price of a cell phone today. We also said to the owners: if you don’t have money, you can pay in extra tranches.” (J.P., Soleil d’Yssandonnais); “We sign an agreement with a derisory rent. For the frst convention we signed, we made the owner touch a share every three years”. (C.B., OSS17) To sum up, the question of remuneration is far from central in the provision of space by individuals or local authorities: he rents the roof, not expensive and there is no hope of a big proft. It is a movement which is also citizen. We do something but not with the hope of making a fortune. (P.S., La Citoyenne Solaire) The link that these structures have with the public authorities and individuals is based on free or quasi-free provision. The lessors who claim their due are, for the moment at least, put at a distance. The relationship is therefore more based on a partnership logic founded on a purpose that transcends the pecuniary interests of the commercial relationship.

4 Citizen “investment”: between ethics and calculation The polysemy of the term “investment” takes on a particular dimension here. Indeed, it refers both to the idea of a disinterested commitment on the part of citizens who wish to work for the ecological transition in the territory they live in and on the idea of the return on a fnancial investment. 4.1 Citizen investment and fundraising 4.1.1 Citizen investment or citizen-investor in joint stock companies The creation of citizen energy companies is part of a process that has been underway for the past ten years: the reorientation of a portion of citizens’

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savings towards the fnancing of projects without a bank intermediary. But, the share of the savings of these citizens remains symbolic with regard to the fnancial capacities required for this kind of project (approximately 15% of the amounts necessary for the installation of infrastructures), it will make it possible to offer a minimum of guarantees to the banks and the public authorities: It is really the citizens who say to us: “rather than having a 0.75% savings account which will not bring me any return at all at the end of 10 years, I might as well put our money in something which will develop a project”. I’m not saying that banks are useless. We, the frst ones, without banks, could not move forward. I am not against capitalism, I just want a change in capitalism. Citizens think like this: “well I have 4000, 300, 200€. I don’t want to speculate on the stock market. On a savings account, I know that it will bring 1%. So I might as well give it to you, it will yield 3.4%. Even if I take risks because it’s a company, but at least I help you and that allows me as a citizen to … I don’t have the time but I have the money…”. (M.A, La Citoyenne Solaire) We then see the emergence of a fgure of economic militant actors who, due to lack of time or desire, integrate the structure as legal shareholders. The fnancial participation, the symbolic rents demanded by the roof lessors or the voluntary commitment of certain subscribers are always described as transcending individual interests: I took shares in the Citoyenne Solaire, on a personal basis, because I am at least convinced, not to earn dough but to support a generous and good idea. And I am also a shareholder in the frst photovoltaic feld in France, in Luxuro: 1, 2, 3 Soleil. It’s not far from your home, from Toulouse and all that … It’s a ground-based production facility. There is therefore a disjunction ground and it is the developer of the wind project at home, which brought me there because it is a project that he develops there and it is carried by the city hall…. (P.M., La Citoyenne Solaire) However, this must be done with a view to good management: There is the will to create collective projects but there is also the awareness that it will cost, of what we will invest in it, of what it must bring us back too. There is a good management of the SAS, the goal is not to make money but it is necessary that it is balanced for the people who invested in it and the backers also who took risks. (C.L., Soleil de l’Yssandonnais)

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 165 The status of “shareholders” to qualify the members of the structures seems inappropriate: the reasons for membership and participation correspond much more to those of “members” of the “Sociétés Coopératives d’Intérêt Collectif” (SCIC) or, insofar as three of the companies in our sample operate without employees, to the qualities of volunteers in an association. The explanation lies in the fact that the emergence and development of these structures are carried out within the framework of a double constraint: to mobilize citizens, both from the point of view of savings and personal commitment and to manage to develop a viable economic model in a context of progressive liberalization of the sector. Therefore, these projects receive public subsidies. But fund-raising platforms use the term “citizen savings” to proceed with a relatively classic capture of funds from a shareholder discourse of short-term proftability (Gilbert and Reix, 2016). 4.1.2 Fund raising: between the logic of need and the logic of supply The citizen strength of the project is defned by its ability to interest a growing number of people. However, most of the entities created in New Aquitaine are not intended to grow (as shown in the CIRENA’s activity report of 2019),11 such as Soleil d’Yssandonnais, which has organized only one share raising and plans to do another only if new project holders come to them: So you’re doing share raises for every roof? No, we did the fve roofs with the amount we had at the beginning. We’re going to see how to do the sixth roof. (J.P., Soleil de l’Yssandonnais) The other three structures are still seeking to recruit new shareholders. I-ENER calls for subscriptions during public meetings before the setting up of each project in order to explain the approach and thus bring new shareholders into the SAS (it is currently the most “important” company in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region with more than 500 shareholders). As for OSS17, it raises funds during information meetings or thematic events on the environment in which it participates: We continue to provide information, at town councils, and then we regularly participate in events, festivals. There we hold stands with people from Enercoop, … Or, with the local authorities, we will hold a stand with the energy information center of the Ile Oléron during the energy markets. And then we try to pass on the information from the press. That’s how we grow the company. (C.B., OSS17)

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A major difference, however, distinguishes these companies. Two of them have a sort of “stumbling block”: the borders of the territory on which they operate. Like the local food circuits, the aim is to make the production and consumption areas coincide. The Citoyenne Solaire initiative refers to a fragmented local (Arnauld de Sartre and Douence, 2010). It takes advantage of its alliances on a large territory to raise funds in rather urban spaces, while the implementation of photovoltaic panels is carried out in the rural spaces of the territory. 4.2 Choosing between ethics and economic feasibility 4.2.1 Equipment, installation and maintenance: between the desire to support local economic activity and price constraints The notion of territory, and its economic corollary, relocation, is the determining variable when it comes to using service providers for the installation of panels. This search is carried out with a desire for geographical coherence, on the model of “locavorism” where the choice will proceed by concentric circles (Poulot, 2012). For the Soleil d’Yssandonnais project, the idea was to work only with local people: the installer is ten kilometres away, the roofer is fve, and we self-built the panels with the installer. (JP, Soleil d’Yssandonnais) So we decided to expand and not to stay in Rihac-Lastours, to expand to the scale of the PNR and so, today, we have defned a territory of action of one hour around Rilhac-Lastours because we realized that there were interested inhabitants in communes that do not necessarily belong to the territory of the PNR.12 (V.C., La Citoyenne Solaire) When skills are lacking on the territory, it is a matter of allowing local companies to train: For the moment we have listed fve, six installers in Charente Maritime. And we would like to set up collaborations between these companies and those of the Ile d’Oléron who would like to acquire competence. It is also a step of the company to make acquire competence to the local companies, because we would like that it is the companies of the island which make the maintenance. (B.C., OSS17) In addition to the installation of the panels, the source of the panels remains problematic as production plants in Europe are scarce and competed with by those located in Asia.

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 167 Europe lost the photovoltaic battle about ten years ago, it didn’t want to do it. 90% of materials today are made in China, they have increased in quality and for us now it is too late. The cost can then be prohibitive despite the initial intentions, justifying this economic choice by the breakdown of production making the effectiveness of a support to national employment null and void: for the panels, we wanted them manufactured in France and all the cells are all manufactured in the Asia. I believe that there is only one manufacturer in France who makes everything in France. Then there is a question of cost too. French panels are more expensive. (P.M., La Citoyenne Solaire) The benefts are also relativized, ensuring that the quality and price can sometimes be abusive: On the other hand I know the channels very well, I’m interested in having the traceability of products, but where they come from, I don’t care, because I know by whom and how they were made […] I tried to do everything local for home furnishings, but they resell things twice their prices, it’s a “one shot”, and that’s a pity, that disappointed me, and so I buy on the internet. Because local, people abuse it. At the local level, it should be the recurrence, not the one shot. (B.C., OSS 17)

4.2.2 Choice of private fnancial partners: between existing actors and new cooperative forms Other lines of tension emerge in a less massive way. As far as fnancing is concerned, the citizen companies build their budget on their own funds, which are relatively weak, supplemented by public subsidies and especially by bank loans. The photovoltaic sector has benefted from guaranteed tariffs for the past decade, and this has provided banks with a secure reference system. The choice of the fnancer has raised debates in one company. Thus, I-ENER chose NEF as a deposit bank and the Crédit Coopératif as a loan bank. If these fnancial entities (semi-bank for the frst and subsidiary of a large group for the second, do not offer the same services (moreover often more expensive than other banks), they represent the two structures of “clean” fnance whose savings are invested in projects respecting and demanding social and environmental criteria. A slightly similar debate exists about energy buyers. The citizen companies analysed produce electrical energy from photovoltaic panels installed

168 Armelle Gomez et al. on the roofs of buildings and sell it entirely to either EDF (for most installations) or Enercoop (in a minority). But the national company remains largely advantaged by the fact that the State only allocates a residual right of repurchase to the alternative energy distributor.

5 Conclusion Three main lines of tension are emerging in the development of renewable energy communities. 5.1 Green energy for an autonomous territory or a territory producing green energy The question of the territory appears in a signifcant way in two projects: there is a point of result formulated by the energy autonomy of space with clearly established borders (an insular zone and a cultural territory become recently administrative territory). The members of the Citoyenne Solaire, like those of Soleil d’Yssandonnais, are more mobilized around the environmental aspect (even if it is obviously not absent from the frst two cases). In the Citoyenne Solaire, the diffusion of technologies allowing the production of green energies seems to spread more like islands independently of strictly determined borders. 5.2 Is the shareholding citizen and are all citizens potentially shareholders? The use of shareholding, which is primarily of interest to people who have savings, legitimately raises the question of social accessibility. Can we talk about citizenship when there is a symbolic and fnancial barrier to entry? Should not the local authorities, as the frst level of representative democracy, have an obligation to participate both fnancially and in decisionmaking within these structures? A second remark refers more specifcally to the subsidies: should not their allocation be based on the sociological diversity of the members? By subsidizing these structures, public policies favour entities that are carried by whiter, more affuent, more male and older categories of the population (criteria that are not representative of the society). Organizations that are more concerned with the need for awareness and participation of all social categories of the society would then be favoured. 5.3 The lever of commitment: political or economic? The link that companies maintain with the actors of the territory is of two kinds. Individuals and public institutions can participate in the project by supporting it through voluntary work or through subsidies and technical

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 169 assistance from the local authorities. But they can also create a link with the organization as a provider of capital (shares, roofs). In this case, there is a signifcant risk that the relationship will slide into a market relationship. While these two types of relationships can be complementary, the question of equality of the members can quickly become problematic. Whether it is the dividends or the rental of the roofs, the frst members will have accepted the initial conditions of the project: almost free provision of the installation space and low remuneration of the shares. But what will happen to the behaviour of the agents when the prospect of dividends, on the one hand, and the remuneration of the roofs, on the other hand, attract new investors? By participating in the general assembly, they will easily be able to change the rules of the game, pay back all the distributable profts and no longer have as their objective what constitutes its corporate purpose. In our sample, this notion of enlargement is present in the evolutionary perspectives of three of the four initiatives and I-ENER, by the number of shareholders present, is a model. The structure seems to correspond to this vision, which explains, in addition to the effective success that its development demonstrates, that it constitutes a popular project, from which many entrepreneurs come to seek inspiration and advice. Only Soleil de l’Yssondonnais is not destined to continue its development by attracting more shareholders. The orientation of public policies, now decentralized, supported by advocacy organizations in favour of renewable energies carried by and for the territories, give preference to mass production models. In the medium term, the role of these structures in raising awareness of the social acceptability of renewable energies and energy sobriety risks being neglected if their action is essentially oriented, like a classic company, towards the search for funds and the installation of power plants and the negotiation of new contracts. The realization of relatively large projects by grouping together initiatives, to the detriment of swarming of microstructures on the territory, raises the question of their long-term capacity to maintain a citizen dynamic. We will then fnd ourselves in a very classic process of conventionalization.

Notes 1 The bibliographical references are indicated in the list of references of the relevant chapter. 2 https://www.ademe.fr/collectivites-secteur-public/animer-territoire/mobilisera c t eu r s -t er r itoi re /developp e me nt-proj et s - de nerg ie -re nouvelable s -agouvernance-locale, [accessed on 20/09/2021]. 3 “The use of the term ‘citizen’ as an adjective is, in principle, an abuse of language this one being a common noun, the corresponding adjective being ‘civic’” (Rudinger, 2019). 4 Ordinance of March 2021 (No. 2021-236) which transcribes into law the European Union Directives 2018/2001 of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

use of energy from renewable sources and 2019/944 of 5 June 2019 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity. https://energie-partagee.org/energie-citoyenne/la-charte-energie-partagee/ [accessed on 12 February 2020]. AuzoEner 2018–2020 (Appel à projet Innovation Sociale, Région Nouvelle Aquitaine). Based on the same fnding, a 50€ entry fee, in German cooperatives, Brummer (2018) offers an opposite interpretation, claiming that the amount is low enough to be accessible to all. https://energie-partagee.org/devenir-actionnaire/souscrire/la-logique-deremuneration/ [accessed on 09/06/2020]. PS and UMP are major French political parties. Abertzale is the term to defne Bask nationalists. https://cirena.fr/medias/rapport-dactivit%C3%A9s2019.pdf [accessed on 19/12/ 2021]. French Regional Natural Park.

References Arnauld de Sartre, X., Douence, H., Mercier, C.-E. (2010). Choisir et redéfnir le local. L’exemple d’un type de flières courtes: les AMAP en Béarn in J.B. TAVERSAC et S. VILLARD. Les circuits courts alimentaires, Educagri, 100–120. Aykut, S., Evrard, A. (2017). Une transition pour que rien ne change? Changement institutionnel et dépendance au sentier dans les « transitions énergétiques » en Allemagne et en France, Revue internationale de politique comparée, 1–2 (24), 17–49. Bauwens, T. (2016). Explaining the diversity of motivations behind community renewable energy. Energy Policy, 93, 278–290. Blanchet, T., Herzberg, C. (2019). Les enjeux démocratiques de la transition énergétique territoriale: enquête sur la coopérative énergétique citoyenne de Iéna. Lien social et Politiques, 82, 139–157. Boyer, R. (2003). Les institutions dans la théorie de la régulation. Cahiers d’économie politique/Papers in Political Economy, (1), 79–101. Boyer, R. (2017). Qu’est-ce que l’hétérodoxie économique? In: Bertrand Badie (ed.) Quête d’alternatives. L’état du monde 2018. Paris, La Découverte, « État du monde », 224–230. Brummer, V. (2018). Of expertise, social capital, and democracy: Assessing the organizational governance and decision-making in German renewable energy cooperatives. Energy Research & Social Science, (37), 111–121. Cacciari, J. (2018). La catégorie de consommateur d’énergie de la « transition énergétique ». Entre injonction à l’autonomie pour les ménages et normalisation économique de leurs pratiques », Gouvernement et action publique, 1 (7), 85–109. Charmillot, M., Dayer, C. (2007). Démarche compréhensive et méthodes qualitatives: Clarifcations épistémologiques. Recherches qualitatives, 3, 126–139. Debourdeau, A. (2011). De la «solution» au «problème». Politix, (3), 103–127. Gilbert, Reix, (2016). Quelle intégration territoriale des énergies renouvelables participatives? Etat des lieux et analyse des projets français. ADEME, 79. Hamman, P., Christen, G. (2017). La transition énergétique face aux inégalités écologiques urbaines », Géographie, économie, société, 2 (20), 267–293. Labussière, O. (2019). La «part récupérable». Multitudes, (4), 61–69.

Reconciling political and economic commitment? 171 Lopez, F. (2019). L’effondrement des grandes infrastructures: une opportunité? Multitudes, 77(4), 70–77. Poulot, M. (2012). Vous avez dit «locavore»? De l’invention du locavorisme aux États-Unis. Pour, (3), 349–354. Reynaud, J. D. (1988). Les régulations dans les organisations: régulation de contrôle et régulation autonome. Revue française de sociologie, (29–1), 5–18. Rüdinger, A. (2016). La transition énergétique par tous et pour tous: quel potentiel d’hybridation pour les projets d’énergies renouvelables? (Working Paper No 05/16). Iddri. Rüdinger, A. (2019). Les projets participatifs et citoyens d’énergies renouvelables en France: état des lieux et recommandations. Iddri, Étude N°03/19. Sebi, C., Vernay, A. L. (2020). Community renewable energy in France: The state of development and the way forward. Energy Policy, 147, 111874. Servalos, M. (2020). L’énergie citoyenne: levier pour une société autonome et durable? Doctoral thesis. Lausanne: Université de Lausanne. Sherer, N., M’Baye, M., Ainio, S. (2016). L’implication citoyenne directe et intermédiée au sein des projets participatifs de production d’énergie renouvelable - Formes de gouvernance et modalités juridiques, study report coordinated by Guerry, A. and Paraiso, J.-E., SciencePo. https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-de-droit/sites/ sciencespo.fr.ecole-de-droit/fles/RAPPORT%20FINAL%20EPI%20RISE.pdf [accessed 20/09/2021] Tarhan, M. D. (2017). Renewable energy co-operatives and energy democracy: A critical perspective. Canadian Association for Studies in Co-operation Conference, Toronto, May 30-June 2nd, 2017, 1–26. Walker, G., Devine-Wright, P. (2008). Community renewable energy: What should it mean? Energy Policy, 36(2), 497–500. Yildiz, Ö. (2014). Financing renewable energy infrastructures via fnancial citizen participation–The case of Germany. Renewable Energy, 68, 677–685.

C.2 Emergence and transformation of Enercoop The French network of electricity supply cooperatives as a new social economy initiative Rémi Maître 1 Introduction With the awareness of the climate and ecological crises, public authorities, as well as numerous international organizations such as the European Union (EU), aim to move away from non-renewable energy. However, these bodies are hampered by the “path dependency” (North, 2010; Palier, 2010) of their infrastructures, which are mainly based on the non-renewable energies. The exit from these energies is a ground-breaking mission for our societies, in which the USA and the EU seem unable to make signifcant inroads. Faced with this “lock-in” (Arthur, 1989), since the 1990s “pioneer groups” have accompanied the emergence of energy communities (Bauwens, 2016; Hufen and Koppenjan, 2015). These are described as decentralized and non-governmental initiatives of local communities and citizens that promote the production and consumption of renewable energy1 (RE) (Bomberg and McEwen, 2012). Within these communities, mainly driven from the territories, a wide diversity of organizations coexist. They are distinguishable by three criteria: legal set-up (form of ownership, composition of equity and degree of participation), activity (production, distribution, supply) and technology (type of converter and energy sources). This diversity generates different degrees of member participation, from a simple fnancial contribution to the possibility of active participation in the framework of energy cooperatives (ECs) working to democratize the sector (Yildiz et al., 2015). For example, since Germany chose to halt nuclear power at the end of the 1990s and embark on energy transformation or “energiewende”,2 the country has experienced a growth of EC (Yildiz et al., 2015) and, from a European standpoint, appears to be a laboratory for industry (Salles, 2019). Nevertheless, ECs are developing in other countries, such as Spain (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2018) and the Netherlands (Hufen and Koppenjan, 2015). Following the gradual liberalization of the sector since the late 1990s, France has also experienced this phenomenon with the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-13

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development of citizen production cooperatives (Fontaine, 2019) and even a new emergence of local and citizen EC (Maître, 2019). The cooperative supplier of renewable electricity, Enercoop, which is the subject of this chapter,3 was born against this backdrop. The Nouvelle économie sociale (New Social Economy, henceforth “NSE”), conceived at the interaction of two sides: the instituting and the instituted (Prades, 2022), is described in this chapter. Based on this analytical framework, the network of “Sociétés cooperatives d’intérêt collectif” (Cooperative Societies of Collective Interest, henceforth “CSCI”), or Enercoop, was created in 2004 following the opening up of the French electricity market. Today, the network is composed of the original cooperative located in Paris, Enercoop Nationale (EN), and ten cooperatives scattered around the regions. Driven by the will to initiate an “energy democracy” (Interview (Int.) 57, founder, EN)4 (Szulecki, 2018), the network aims to supply electricity from renewable sources (hydro, wind, solar) at the local level and offer services that allow its members to reduce their consumption. In view of this paradoxical dual objective, the researchers for this paper initially sought to answer questions on the contributions of the NSE practices to the electricity sector. The main question was “How does the network of Enercoop cooperatives organize itself in pursuit of its ambitious objectives and hold together the instituting and the instituted sides?” To answer this question and understand the emergence of such an initiative, an investigation using a dual economic and sociological approach was carried out. To focus on the economic aspects, an industrial analysis approach, inspired by work on the French industrial economy5 (Chevalier, 1977), allowed us to access the characteristics of the electricity sector so as to situate the cooperatives and identify their features. However, this industrial approach was not enough to fully understand the Enercoop movement and its contributions to the electricity sector, revealing the need for sociological analysis. Thus, several methods were used to fully grasp how the initiative emerged and how the cooperatives work. To present the details of the cooperative supplier, the chapter frst details the theoretical framework proposed here through the concept of the NSE. It then explains the bi-disciplinary methodological approach implemented to explore the object of study. After describing the context of the liberalization of the electricity sector in France since the 1990s, the text presents the instituting side of the cooperative network. Using data collected during interviews and observation sessions, the researchers traced the reasons for its emergence and its objectives. The chapter goes on to address the instituted side of the cooperative network, the “Enercoop model”, detailing its three main features of tariff positioning, industrial policy and organizational structure. Finally, it concludes by discussing the means deployed to maintain the instituting within Enercoop, opening up the questions raised by each of these means.

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2 The theoretical framework of the NSE: the interaction of the instituting and instituted The theoretical framework presented and mobilized here differs from the institutional framework of France’s Social and Solidarity Economy,6 to place Enercoop in the tradition of the social economy. The latter is conceived in this paper as “the self-construction of collective practices” instigated by a collective to respond to its needs unsatisfed (Prades, 2012) by the state or private for-proft operators. Historically, such initiatives are well documented (Bourgin, 1925; Gueslin, 1998); they belong to the tradition of experiences springing up in the nineteenth century in an attempt to respond to the deleterious effects on the “labouring classes” of the development of industrial capitalism (Villermé, 1840). From this point of view, Enercoop seems to be an exemplary initiative in the NSE, which is conceived from two interacting sides: an instituting and an instituted7 (Prades, 2022). The instituting side is the contestation of a collective built around a cause (Vendramin, 2013) and aims at social transformation. However, the collective can quickly dissolve if it does not become organized. It must therefore unite around a common affect, and take shape in a dynamic of conquering workers (Desroche, 1976) to institute itself, under cooperative status, as “an alternative economic form” (Prades, 2022). This alternative form is its ownership regime, cooperative ownership, that will have to resist the risk of isomorphism throughout its existence (Bodet and Lamarche, 2020; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). What is important is not the existence of the two sides but their interaction: some cooperatives accompany their development with associations that bring the cooperative to life politically; others introduce colleges to integrate militant forces into their board of directors. Enercoop has chosen different means to bring about this interaction: the militant anchoring of members, an offshoot of local cooperatives, with holacracy (a system of self-organization) in certain EN clusters and local cooperatives (in particular in the Midi-Pyrénées cooperative).

3 Methodological preamble To study the cooperative supplier, a socio-economic approach is used as a way of both elucidating the economic positioning and analysing the social movement from a sociological stance. First, the work is based on an industrial analysis to specify the characteristics of electricity and present the features of the French electricity sector. This special sector has undergone a major upheaval since the 1990s in the wake of market liberalization. The aim of this approach is to clarify the place of the Enercoop cooperative network of market shares, positioning, strategy, differentiation, etc., in the sector and identify the main characteristics of the “Enercoop model”, which stands out in terms of tariff positioning, industrial policy and organizational structure.

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Yet the economic approach is not suffcient to explain the emergence of Enercoop, identify its sociological features, analyse the motivations of its members and describe its local and national functioning. Several data collection methods have therefore been used to produce primary data on this network of cooperatives which has not been the subject of signifcant academic work. These methods aimed to produce an in-depth study report of the members’ profles, understand their reasons for joining and explore the functioning and organization of some cooperatives in the network. To do this, around 60 semi-structured sociological interviews were conducted with various members (consumers, employees and volunteers). One focus of this work was therefore to understand how they had encountered the energy cooperatives and, through life stories or biographical trajectory (Bah et al., 2015; Orofamma, 2008), identify the triggers that motivate membership of the cooperative. As for the interviews conducted with employees and committed volunteers, the objective was frst to identify their motives and types of commitment (Thévenot, 2015), particularly in terms of activist capital (Matonti and Poupeau, 2004). The second aim was to ask the respondent about the cooperatives’ organizational method, as well as their working conditions (in relation to their previous experiences). In addition to the interviews, online sociological surveys were carried out among the members to establish their sociological profles (age, gender, socio-professional category), militant profle, etc.). Finally, observation sessions were conducted with two cooperatives: Enercoop Midi-Pyrénées (EMIP) and Enercoop Nationale (EN). Four main types of “moments of life” were observed: formal meetings (General Assembly, Board of Director’s meeting, etc.); ordinary work sessions and weekly meetings; external events (workshops), whether for members or third parties and strategic seminars for prospective purposes.

4 The emergence of Enercoop in the French electric sector Enercoop, the cooperative supplier of renewable electricity, was created in Paris in 2004 following the opening of the electricity sector to competition. To understand this emergence, the context of liberalization initiated within the framework of EU integration should be recalled. The consequence of this integration process has been that all member countries hold objectives of free, undistorted competition in all sectors, as far as possible. This doctrine has been implemented in a large number of sectors, including network industries, where somewhat artifcial conditions sometimes have to be set up to create a competitive system. In the liberalization of the electricity sector, member states could choose between several modes of opening up the energy chain. France opted for the separation of transmission activities from its other activities within the former monopoly (Pinon et Véron, 2015). The new regulated framework, progressively introduced in the 1990s by the transposition of European

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directives into national law, has dismantled Electricité De France’s (EDF) historical monopoly. Nevertheless, the transmission activities (“the pipes”) that are considered natural monopolies in the context of liberalization, have not been liberalized. Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE) is mainly in charge of transmission activities (and also of other duties, such as management of the supply/demand balance in real-time),8 while Enedis manages distribution activities. At the same time, the electricity production and supply sectors have been opened up since 1999 and operators are gradually entering the competition. This competition has been based on “two fundamental principles” that were to be applied consecutively to the two liberalized sectors: “that of liberty of establishment for energy producers, allowing effective competition in the production sector; [and] that of freedom of choice of energy supplier for consumers - individuals or professionals (companies, industrialists, public authorities, etc.)” (Pinon and Véron, 2015, p.34). Thus, the progressive liberalization of the electricity sector in France has brought about an institutional upheaval. The sector has gone from being managed mainly by an integrated public monopoly (EDF) since 1946 to the dismantling of the energy chain into several activities (see Figure C2.1). The gradual process of liberalization began at the end of the 1990s and reached a new stage on 1 July 2004, when all non-residential sites in France were allowed to choose a supplier other than the sole historical one. It is in this context that Enercoop was founded in Paris and that the frst Cooperative Society of Collective Interest (CSCI) of the network, Enercoop Nationale

Electricity generation

Electricity transmission and distribution

Electricity supplier

Electricity is generated from various primary energy sources that are converted into electricity by different technologies and power plants.

Electricity transmission and distribution are mainly network activities that connect electricity production points to consumption points. In France, these activities have not been opened to competition and are mainly carried out by Enedis and local distribution companies (ELD in French)

Activity that consists of supplying end users (individuals, companies, administrations, etc.) with electricity (authorization to purchase electricity for resale)

Figure C2.1 Energy chain for electricity after liberalization

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(EN), was created. This paper seeks to fnd out why this supplier was created, with what objectives and how it can be characterized.

5 The instituting side: context and reasons for the emergence of Enercoop In accordance with the analytical framework of the NSE, it is necessary to specify the instituting side of the initiative and its objective of social transformation. According to the founder of Enercoop, a French former industrial engineer, the initial idea was not necessarily to create a new supplier: So what is important to understand is that, in any case, from my point of view, I think it was quite shared at the time, we didn’t necessarily have the desire and the goal to say, well, we have to make a renewable electricity supplier. I think we did it because we simply didn’t get what existed at the time and in particular from EDF to have this will to do something for renewable energies and which corresponds to the wishes of a certain number of people and structures, I think in particular of those who were founding members at the time, the Biocoop network, but others too. (Int. 56, male, founder) To explain the emergence of the initiative, this founder points out the absence of a proposal from operators to meet existing demand and needs in terms of renewable electricity supply. Another founder, a student at the time of the creation of Enercoop, was doing his end-of-study internship in an NGO. The focus of his internship was to study the supply of “green” electricity: I did a study on the existing suppliers, that is to say, at the time, there were four - four or fve. And there, we can clearly see that we are in pure greenwashing, that is to say the idea of the internship (…) was that the opening of the energy market will allow the development of renewable energies. And the conclusion was quickly made, it was [that] all the offers were greenwashing. (Int. 57, male, founder) During this internship, he deplored the lack of transparency, democracy and participation of the greatest number of people in the choices and orientations of French energy policies: Then, [I was] very focused during my internship on: energy democracy is suppressed. In fact, (…) I was still at ** for six months. I saw a little bit of the laws being made and unmade. It was in the middle of the energy law boom. There were four or fve laws in less than ten years. And there, I saw for real, with my own eyes, the scandal of phoney democracy. (Int. 57, male, founder, EN)

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This absence of deliberation on energy issues and the desire to challenge this absence eventually led the founders to start creating Enercoop: And since there was no desire to create a green offer, something that would satisfy the needs and the more or less clearly formalized demand of a certain number of individual and corporate consumers, we said, by default, we will create a structure that will allow us to meet that need. (Int. 56, male, founder, EN) In the absence of real concerns from existing operators to support RE, the founders wished to promote another energy model that was truly ecological and locally based: So, I was very interested during my studies, clearly renewable equals local. You see, we were told all the time, whether in Africa or in France, Renewable equals local, it’s clear, coal, gas, oil equal centralized. (Int. 57, male, founder) This principle attributes certain energy-producing technologies with a decisive impact on political forms. It makes energy options “political choices” that impact social forms (and vice versa). Thus, the founders contested the opaque, technocratic logic of the electric sector dominated by a small number of companies and structured around centralized production units. They initiated a new energy path, “an energy democracy” (Int. 57, male, founder) (Szulecki, 2018). In this objective, they were inspired by the experiences of Ecopower (Belgium) (Huybrechts, 2013) or Greenpeace Energy (Germany), and chose an alternative economic form, the CSCI.

Box C2.1 Some statistics on the Enercoop network Statistically, after 15 years of operation, the Enercoop network in 2021 has more than 100,000 customers and 50,000 members, and in 2020 held production contracts with 277 producers representing a “total capacity” of 324 MW, i.e., about 0.24% of the installed capacity in France and 0.60% of RE capacity. Despite these minimal fgures compared to large operators, the network is growing signifcantly: in four years, EN multiplied its turnover more than fourfold (from 20,000,000 in 2014 to 85,000,000 euros in 2018). Sources: Enercoop.fr [Accessed on 20/05/2020], Verif.com [Accessed on 06/12/2021], https://opendata.reseaux-energies.fr/ [Accessed on 06/12/2021].

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6 The “Enercoop model”: tariff, industrial and organizational characteristics From the outset, Enercoop has had two objectives: to supply renewable electricity (wind, hydro, solar) on a local scale through direct contracts (short electricity circuits) and to offer energy services to reduce consumption. This research has revealed that, to achieve these goals, Enercoop has three particular characteristics, contrasting them with other suppliers. These can be categorized as tariff positioning, industrial policy and organizational structure. 6.1 Tariff positioning: a price higher than the market First of all, the cooperative supplier displays a price per kWh that is higher than the market price (non-price competition). Backed by the sobriety approach (propounded by the negaWatt association),9 Enercoop’s objective is to accompany its members towards a decrease in consumption. To join Enercoop, you must agree to pay a more expensive electricity bill. This choice seems all the more peculiar since, from a sociological point of view, electricity can be characterized as “invisible evidence”. In its daily uses, it is only materialized by the use of “electrical objects”, which are the mediators of electricity (Desjeux, 1996). This characteristic, the centrality of electricity (the use of electrical appliances is at the centre of our lifestyles) and its invisibility (it is generally only in the event of a malfunction that it becomes visible) constitute the atypical character of this form of energy. In the framework of a large integrated electricity system, there is no difference in its uses between suppliers. Thus, there is “perfect homogeneity of the product” which is by nature an indivisible object (Gabszewicz, 2006). According to neoclassical consumer theory (Srinivasan and Winer, 1994), such homogeneity should result in the consumer opting for the cheapest price. However, Enercoop’s consumers deviate from this perspective and are willing to pay more for their kWh. This raises questions about customers’ motivations and what differentiates Enercoop’s electricity from that of other suppliers. Nevertheless, before detailing some of the motivations expressed during the interviews, which are discussed as a means of maintaining the instituting within the instituted, the three industrial traits of Enercoop that can explain this additional cost will be examined. 6.2 Industrial policy: refusal of ARENH, direct contracts and specifc uses of guarantees of origin (GO) Regarding electricity supply activity, Enercoop is characterized by three industrial traits: (1) the refusal of Regulated Access to Historic Nuclear Energy (ARENH by its initials in French); (2) a will to contract producers directly and on a long-term basis and (3) simultaneously buying electricity packages and guarantees of origin (GO).

180 Rémi Maître 6.2.1 Refusing ARENH ARENH was introduced in France in 2010 by the NOME act (Pinon and Véron, 2015). It is a law that seeks to overcome a number of obstacles to liberalization, that were pointed out by the European Commission and prevent competition in the electricity sector. Among the changes introduced by this law, to reduce the advantage of the energy rent of the historical operator, some of the electricity produced by EDF’s thermonuclear power plants (about 100 TWh per year) is sold to alternative suppliers at administered prices. These nuclear electricity packages are present in large numbers in the French electricity system and ARENH allows alternative suppliers to access competitive electricity prices. While this option is heavily used by alternative suppliers10 a decade after the application of the ARENH, Enercoop refuses it, preferring to obtain supplies only from RE producers. 6.2.2 Long-term contracting with GO purchases: supply in question This refusal of ARENH is linked to Enercoop’s very specifc contracting strategy to satisfy the electricity supply of its end customers. To better understand this trait, it should be remembered that the liberalization of the electricity sector has been accompanied by the development of a market architecture with different compartments. This accentuates the complexity of the electricity sector, with the multiplication of RE converters connected to the networks (intermittency). Liberalization is thus giving rise to innovation in activities (fow aggregation) and highly sophisticated fnancial products and services (guarantees, hedging, among others). Faced with this increased complexity, the network of cooperatives seeks to reduce market mediation (risk of short-term and speculative logic) and limit intermediaries. The objective is to improve transparency in the means of mobilized production, with the desire to promote a logic of territorial registration. In this way, Enercoop’s practices consist of canvassing RE producers via regional feld prospectors, and establishing contractual links (long-term, if possible) with producers. This preference for direct contracts explains why there is talk of short electricity circuits. Nevertheless, the scarcity of electrons of RE origin in the French electrical system (depending on the season, peaks in demand and supply and other factors) poses a serious industrial diffculty, which can at times weaken the model. 6.2.3 Increasing the traceability of electrons: buying electricity and GO together In addition to this refusal of nuclear electricity at a competitive cost, Enercoop differentiates itself by specifc use of GO, a system set up at EU level. Since the beginning of 2000, refecting the will to take ecological problems into account, the European Parliament has produced a certain number of

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directives encouraging operators to produce electricity of renewable origin. These seek to reach the objective of an energy mix “more respectful of the environment” (EU objective). However, in a large integrated and interconnected electrical system, it is impossible to track electrons from their place of production to the end-user. Various European legislative provisions have therefore sought to increase the traceability of the electron in the electrical network. A European directive11 (2009) introduced GOs, a kind of green certifcate aimed at allowing the end consumer to verify the origin of the electricity consumed.12 In concrete terms, a GO is an electronic certifcation made by a registered production site that consists of identifying an amount of electricity produced, during a given period, and injected into the network (1 MWh, for example). These “green tags” can be bought and sold in their own in-market compartments. Nevertheless, a number of studies13 note a lack of certainty regarding the capacity of GOs to really support the development of RE (Laurent and Petit, 2020). To overcome the limitations of GOs and improve the traceability of its supply, Enercoop, unlike a number of suppliers who purchase electricity via ARENH and GOs without concrete links, seeks to purchase from producers both the electricity packages they inject and their GO. Enercoop’s “direct contracts” approach is linked to the desire to create a local network of cooperatives. 6.3 Organizational structure: a network of territorial CSCIs to promote citizen participation and short electric circuits Finally, turning to organizational set-up, the supplier is characterized by three aspects: (1) the choice of a CSCI status; (2) Enercoop’s spread into regions of France since 2010 and (3) the use of holacracy, an organizational practice chosen by some of Enercoop’s collectives and cooperatives, without any obligation in the cooperative network. After an examination of each of these aspects, the means implemented in the cooperatives to weave together the instituting and the instituted will be discussed. 6.3.1 CSCI status to encourage participation and control proft-making Enercoop has chosen the CSCI status, recently created in the 2001 French cooperative law. Generally speaking, three principles summarize the cooperative approach: frst, the cooperative company has “a capital composed of social shares and not of shares and bonds”. Second, each member has a dual capacity.14 Finally, the company applies “the formal principle of ‘one person one vote’” (Prades, 2022). However, CSCI bylaws differ from other cooperative statutes in a certain number of ways. Among these, the CSCI status was conceived from stakeholder theory (Parmar et al., 2010). This theory seeks to go beyond the idea that the company’s social role is to make a proft for

182 Rémi Maître shareholders (Friedman, 1970; Robé, 2012) and wishes to take into account all the participants in the initiative. This results in a more outward-looking organization of a multi-stakeholder community, made up of different colleges of members depending on their membership status. In addition, it allows for volunteer involvement in daily operations, placing it halfway between a company and an association. This may result in a form of government exercised jointly by employees and volunteers (as in the Midi-Pyrénées Enercoop cooperative). It is interesting to understand why Enercoop chose this status: The CSCI format (…), it is the fact of putting around a table a group of people who do not necessarily have the same interest. To put them around a table so that they can discuss together, consumers, producers, that’s it. It is very clearly, it is naturally colleges of members who must, who need each other, that is for sure, who do not necessarily have the same vision of things, but who can work together to build a common vision. And so the CSCI status seemed to us particularly interesting on this point. In addition, the fact that it was the most restrictive status on the remuneration of the people who put money into it attracted us, that’s clear. (Int. 56, male, founder, EN) Two arguments explain the choice of the CSCI. First, there is the collegiate dimension, which opens up the involvement and deliberation of members with theoretically divergent interests. Second, there is the principle of non-shareability of the cooperative’s reserves; in other words, an enterprise with a CSCI status must respect a rate of between 57.5% and 100% non-shareable reserves, and this rate must be set out in its statutes.15 This principle, obliging the partnership to constitute capital and common ownership, is sometimes translated as a non-proft or limited proft principle and marks a departure from the classic company objective oriented towards shareholder value (corporate governance). Accordingly, the cooperative status can have an infuence on the way employees are paid, by reducing the degree of opacity on salary disparities and favouring the establishment of salary scales with smaller gaps between employees. For example, at EN, this is refected in the existence of a working group, the “compensation circle”, whose agreement is available online.16 This circle,17 made up of representatives from each division of the cooperative, deals with wages. Some employees appreciated the opportunity to discuss salary issues: For example, in terms of HR, I was very excited by the principle of salary transparency, for example, (…) by everything I heard at the beginning, about the operation of a compensation circle. With real discussions in the company about how (…) the salary policy should be managed. So, after

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a while, you see that it has its limits, that it doesn’t work all the time, that there are pitfalls, that’s it. (Int. 43, female, employee) In EN, while it may have been lower in the past, there is currently a ratio of 1:3 between the lowest and highest salary (Int. 57, male, founder). Nevertheless, this pay scale is not always easy to implement. Finding and recruiting people with specifc energy/electricity sector skills can be made diffcult by a potential lack of salary attractiveness. Comparing the same level of skills, remuneration at EN may be lower than in other companies in the sector, especially with the high cost of living in Paris. Interviews with a number of EN employees revealed that they were willing to accept lower salaries than what was offered elsewhere. The tendency to accept a lower salary has been observed (Int. 11, 14, 33, 39, 44, 48, among others). Nevertheless, while it is compensated by Enercoop’s political project, it does not necessarily concern all employees. This can vary according to the skills sought and can lead to highly opposing perspectives. Some employees actually beneft from a higher salary when they join Enercoop because of their qualifcations, such as one salesman who almost doubled his salary when he joined (Int. 47, male, sales rep.). This can be explained by the choice of a very specifc salary policy at EN, namely a minimum gross salary of 2,600 euros. This fgure is far higher than the minimum wage (SMIC in French) of 1,400 euros gross in France and shows that EN has made a strong choice in terms of remuneration, with the lowest salaries being almost double the French minimum wage. This remuneration policy applies to the original cooperative, EN, although the independence of each cooperative in the network leaves each a certain freedom in terms of salary policies and pay scales. In local cooperatives, the CSCI status can lead to a mode of government coordinated by volunteers and employees. 6.3.2 The spin-off of CSCIs in the regions and the distribution of activities in the network To achieve its objective of short electricity circuits, in 2010 Enercoop started to set up spin-off cooperatives in different regions of France, on the basis of a layering strategy, with the creation of Enercoop Champagne-Ardenne (now Enercoop Nord-Est). A decade later, the network is composed of ten cooperatives: EN, the original cooperative, and nine regional co-ops or Enercoop Locales (EL). This spin-off strategy initiated by EN is an interesting subject as it has generated a mode of operation for the network and a distribution of activities which regularly give rise to discussions and tensions. EN has an anteriority that gives it a special place in the network, historically, legally and economically. It, therefore, retains a certain number of activities that it coordinates for all the cooperatives, namely, invoicing, customer relations, business provision activities for the Territory Not

184 Rémi Maître Covered18 by an EL and specialized core energy business activities. The latter are highly specialized activities, such as procurement and portfolio management, which are characterized by a high degree of technicality. They involve a large number of risks and fuctuations that can change very suddenly according to institutional, technical, economic or climatic conditions. Supply, for example, must be subject to extremely sensitive monitoring, and controlled by an effcient information system to reduce the risk of a sharp increase in the supplier’s costs. Within Enercoop, it is EN’s responsibility to take charge of these functions and to solve any problems. This can make it particularly vulnerable to fuctuations in energy prices or to changes in the institutional conditions governing the French electricity system. The local cooperatives, on the other hand, are mainly responsible for marketing Enercoop’s electricity supply contracts in their territory. They are remunerated by their contribution to new customers, a business development activity for the Enercoop brand that makes them dependent on new Enercoop subscribers in the region. In 2019, this remuneration was calculated via the contribution of the number of kVa, i.e., according to the subscribed power used by the new customer’s meter. This method of remuneration, often considered unsatisfactory, is regularly discussed within the network and its bodies (intercooperative Board of Directors, Network Management Committee, among others). The fact remains that Enercoop is having diffculty developing a real federation of cooperatives and fnding a balanced distribution of power and proft margin between the various communities. However, as Enercoop is setting up CSCIs, the ELs can carry out other activities in the regions, specifc to the choices and strategies implemented in each one. For example, the Midi-Pyrénées cooperative (EMIP) is now developing means of electricity production in its territory, while supporting its members towards individual self-consumption and experimenting with collective self-consumption. 6.3.3 Self-organization to initiate the most horizontal system of government possible Finally, some collectives, like the Midi-Pyrénées cooperative or the energy cluster within EN, have also opted for an organizational mode based on deliberative techniques, such as holacracy. Concretely, following self-organization theories such as sociocracy,19 holacracy seeks to go beyond the limits of “command and control” management and aims to optimize meetings, make the organization scalable and develop “distributed decision making”. According to its frst proponents, holacracy aims to give workers the power to decide (Robertson, 2015). It further requires the application of a certain number of basic concepts (role, tension, circle), the distinction of spheres of activity (operations, governance), the use of digital tools (software) and the application of mediation. Said mediation includes integrative or consent decision-making, based on non-violent communication.

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7 Discussion: how to maintain the instituting in the instituted? Three restoring forces To conclude and to answer the question of how Enercoop manages to maintain its ambitious objectives, the text will now test the analytical framework of the NSE. It will describe three ways used by the supplier Enercoop to keep together the instituting and the instituted, pursue support for RE and avoid isomorphism. These three forces become more crucial when the initiative expands, as in the case of Enercoop. Each one: militant anchoring, the territorial network and the choice of self-organization of certain collectives, poses questions and food for thought on EC. 7.1 Members’ activist anchoring: the strength of the cooperative ecology affect20 Participation (as a consumer, employee or volunteer) in Enercoop requires consenting to a reduction in economic capital and involves elements of a militant nature. The consumers explain their choice for subscribing by allegiance to one or more of four objectives: to refuse nuclear energy (Int. 3, 8, 13, 25), to support RE (Int. 24, 26, 31, 37), to adhere to an environmental ethic (Int. 12, 19, 27, 31) and to value human contact and workers (Int. 26, 31, 32). Over 50% of the interviewees had discovered Enercoop through the activist sector. In the survey conducted among EMIP members in 2018, twothirds of the respondents claimed to have militant commitments in other organizations. This militant anchoring was affrmed during interviews with volunteers and employees. The former are ready to commit, even if it means reducing their paid work time elsewhere (Int. 12, 14, 58). As for the latter, most say that they have accepted a lower salary to be coherent with their values (Int. 11, 38, 39, 44, 46, 48). The reduction in economic interest and the emphasis on militant commitment allow us to assume that the members, like the founders when choosing the CSCI, are characterized by an affect for cooperative ecology. This is articulated between the affrmation of ecological awareness and a citizen’s inclination to participate. For the members of Enercoop, knowing that they are supplied with nuclear electricity results in a sad affect (Int. 3, 4, 8, 13, 15, 37, 58) while being able to support renewable electricity (Int. 3, 8, 10, 15, 31, 37) and participate in the decision-making of their supplier is a source of a happy affect (Int. 3, 15, 26, 32). However, at least three diffculties have been identifed with this anchoring. First, there is the diffculty of recruiting qualifed employees in a technical sector, with salaries often lower than those of competitors. Second, some cooperatives rely on the commitment of volunteers who hold positions of responsibility, raising the question of how they would function without volunteers. Finally, the online survey carried out among EMIP members

186 Rémi Maître shows a very constant representation of socio-professional categories. There is an extremely low representation of respondents who are blue-collar and low-level white-collar employees, and an over-representation of executives and intellectually higher professions, raising the question of how the EC can spread and reach the whole population. 7.2 Local swarming to survive the “destruction of a base” At the organizational level, the development of a local cooperative raises many questions. The network is facing certain diffculties fnding a path towards a federation of cooperatives that would allow for a fair and equitable distribution of power and added value among them. Nevertheless, the objective initiated by the spin-off policy and the change of scale remains clear according to one founder: My idea was to multiply this model and replicate it, it works very well in the social and solidarity economy, the spin-off. And very quickly, I said to myself, we have to make a lot of small bases, because we are going to be screwed, we are going to go bankrupt, it is going to be diffcult and because renewable equals local, we have to make CSCIs in the territories. (Int. 57, male, founder, EN) Some critical moments of the Enercoop network confrm the intuition of this founder. At the end of the 2010s, the network focused its strategy on commercial growth and faced a sharp increase in the number of consumers. This increase ended up generating a growth crisis and major tensions appeared between the original and the local cooperatives. In particular, the latter reproached EN for not taking them suffciently into account (they were not on EN’s Board of Directors) and for steering the network into a commercial strategy without collegiality. Faced with this confict, the local cooperatives joined forces to make their point of view heard in the growth crisis that was causing a deterioration in EN’s results. As the crisis culminated, the voice of the ELs was heard, leading to a change in EN’s management and the inclusion of local co-op directors on EN’s board. In addition to the possibility of increasing the number of consumers on a local scale (observation 23, EMIP), the local co-op thus provides the strength of local anchoring and can give feedback to the instituting body in the face of risks of trivialization by the market. 7.3 Self-organization to increase the power of the activist in the institute Finally, Enercoop has chosen deliberative forms of organization (Battistelli, 2019) that are radically different from hierarchical forms (Martela, 2019).

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In the early years of the project, the activist impulse was very strong, to the point that it may have been taboo to talk about clients (Int. 1, male, administrator, EN). This was confrmed by a founder who mentioned a lack of commercial fbre at the foundation of the project, which resulted in diffculties within the sales division: And in 2010–2011–2012, there is a big crisis in customer service. (…) We really don’t have that in our corporate culture, which is very strange, because that’s also how people choose their electricity supplier. It’s the quality of the customer service. But it’s not in our DNA. Anyway, the company had a big crisis: they didn’t have the right tools, or the right training, etc. So we decided to hire external consultants, and we called on a whole bunch of stuff. (…) A little innovative. And so we found a lot of service providers, including Université du Nous.21 (…) That’s how sociocracy and holacracy arrived at Enercoop. (Int. 57, male, founder, EN) Thus, during the observation sessions, some EN clusters and cooperatives, such as the EN energy cluster and the EMIP cooperative, opted for holacracy. In addition to the CSCI status, holacracy transformed the ways of working and brought in new processes, for example, meta-deliberation (Battistelli, 2019) in EMIP. According to this, the legal representative must deploy a singular form of leadership, a “host leadership” (Int. 57, administrator, EMIP) where they must put themselves at the service of the collective and accompany collective decision-making. In this regard, the collective data allowed us to identify four modes of decision-making: autonomous, by opinion, by consent (or by lack of objection) and by consensus. On the other hand, employees must be autonomous in their roles and succeed in appropriating and applying, depending on the situation, complex techniques that open up the group to collective intelligence. In this context, members must trust each other and agree to submit to peer control. Nevertheless, this begs a new question: if the methods allow the instituting to be put in the instituted, as the observation sessions have shown, do these methods not run the risk of going against the objective of democratizing energy and reducing the possibility of including new members? Thus, in addition to the particularities of the Enercoop model, the three restoring forces identifed, which allow for the strength of the instituting within the instituted, are of great interest for research. Furthermore, the inventiveness at work in the energy cooperative network is highly signifcant from the social, industrial and organizational points of view. Nevertheless, the continuity of the network, which allows activist cooperatives to pursue their objective of supporting renewable energies and paving the way towards a 100% RE mix, raises the question of how access to RE can really be democratized for all.

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Notes 1 Energy whose working capacities come mainly from so-called renewable sources (wind, sun, dams, etc.), which are distinguished from non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil, etc.). 2 A clarifcation note by B. Laponche provides an update on the current status of the energy transition in Germany. https://journaldelenergie.com/nucleaire/contre-verites-allemagne-sortie-nucleaire/ [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 3 “In Enercoop’s new social economy initiative: utopias and realities of activist cooperatives for renewable energy”, Thesis in progress, University Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès, CERTOP laboratory, UMR 5044 du CNRS (codirection Marie-Christine Zélem et Jacques Prades). 4 When an excerpt from an interview is used in this chapter, a parenthesis, when necessary, specifes the number of the interview, the role of the respondent, and his cooperative: here it is interview no. 57 conducted with a founder of Enercoop Nationale (EN). 5 The industrial economic approach referred to in this document is a synthesis carried out by J.M. Chevalier from a large number of American works written in the wake of the work of the economist Alfred Marshall and his pioneering work “The economics of industry”. 6 In 2015, the French law on the social and solidarity economy (in French “l’Economie Sociale et Solidaire”) resulted in the aggregation of very different actors (mutual organizations, cooperatives, associations, social enterprises), and generated a lack of clarity as to the goals, means and objectives set up by this group of actors. 7 The term “Nouvelle économie sociale”, “New Social Economy” (NES in this paper) is borrowed from the école d’Économie sociale de Toulouse which has been built up gradually since the end of the 1990s around a team of teachers from Université de Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès. This team, in addition to its founder J. Prades, is made up of G. Azam, M.-L. Arripe, S. Hénin, J. Milanési, J. Pélenc and M. Bruyère, Director of the NES Master’s degree. 8 For more information on RTE: https://www.rte-france.com/en/rte-in-a-nutshell [Accessed on 05/12/2021]. 9 negaWatt is a French association that proposes an energy transition scenario structured around three hierarchical pillars: Sobriety, Effciency, Renewability. 10 According to data from the CRE website. Under the ARENH mechanism, CRE has received a total of 146.2 TWh of electricity requests for 2021 from 81 suppliers (excluding the supply of losses by grid operators and excluding EDF subsidiaries), while the amount of electricity allocated to suppliers at the price of €42 per MWh remains capped at 100 TWh. https://www.cre.fr/Actualites/les-demandes-arenh-pour2021 [Accessed on 12/11/2021] 11 Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009: 140:0016:0062:FR:PDF [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 12 https://www.powernext.com/fr/donnees-du-registre [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 13 As such, Greenpeace regularly carries out an annual ranking to classify suppliers according to their ability to truly support the BR https://www. guide-electricite-verte.fr/. But there is also the ADEME which seeks to better differentiate suppliers https://www.ademe.fr/sites/default/fles/assets/documents/ avis-de-lademe_offres_vertes_decembre2018.pdf. [Accessed on the 05/12/2021].

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14 Dual capacity means that membership in a cooperative is generally dual in that a member is both consumer and member, or employee and member, etc. 15 https://w w w.les-scic.coop/sites/fr/les-scic/FAQ/Resultats _et _reser ves _ impartageables [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 16 https://www.droits-salaries.com/484223094-enercoop/48422309400067-siege/ T07519010458-accord-d-entreprise-relatif-aux-salaires-effectifs-et-a-la-remuneration-remuneration-salaires.shtml [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 17 The concept of “circle” is inspired by self-organization practices (sociocracy, holacracy, etc.) that seek to go beyond hierarchical forms to distribute decision-making power to those who act. 18 The TNC is an important geographical area composed of several regions: Bourgogne Franche Comté, Ile de France, Centre Val de Loire and Alsace. EN has 25,000 members and 28,000 clients. https://www.enercoop.fr/nos-cooperatives/ nationale [Accessed on 28/11/2021]. 19 Developed in the 1970s, sociocracy considers the organization, based on systems theory, as a self-organizing system, and insists on the need to ensure that the components of the system have no control over each other and that there is a two-way fow of information (feedback) between these components (Buck and Endenburg, 2012). To do this, it proposes a certain number of concepts (circle, consent, election, double link, etc.) that holacracy takes up and seeks to enrich. 20 Spinoza understands by affect “the affections of the Body by which its power to act is increased or reduced, seconded or repressed, and together with these affections, their ideas” (Spinoza, Ethics, 1677, 2020, Princeton University Press). 21 The Université du Nous is an association located in Chambery. It offers training and tools for organizations that wish to promote cooperation and coordinate themselves according to collective intelligence. In France, it seems that a certain number of organizations in the social economy call upon the association to organize “shared governance”. For example, some cooperatives in the Enercoop network can call on its services. For more information: http://universite-du-nous. org [Accessed on 28/11/2021].

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C.3 Cooperation within and the institutionalization of participatory renewable energy projects in France A focus on co-developed citizen, public, and private partnership projects Amélie Artis, Justine Ballon, Dorian Litvine, Émilie Dias and Sylvie Blangy

1 Introduction Renewable energy (RE) projects represent a shift from the historical model of energy production in France. In the push for a citizen-led energy transition, a group of stakeholders has recently emerged supporting the development of participatory RE projects that include citizen groups, local public authorities, and private industrial developers. These participatory projects convey a new message and vision in response to climate issues. They are innovative in three key ways: first, they involve socio-technical changes that affect all or part of the value chain and require horizontal collaboration between partners (Tabourdeau and Debizet, 2017). Second, they establish new relationships between energy producers and users and envisage new ways of allocating resources and innovations. Third, these projects are developing and experimenting with innovative, collegial, multi-stakeholder governance with a priority on the management of the commons and the mobilization of stakeholders (Devisse and al., 2016). In the field of RE, there are a number of participatory projects of various types in France. This chapter focuses on co-developed citizen, public, and private partnership projects (hereafter, CPPs), aiming to describe their specific characteristics compared to participatory projects more broadly. It outlines the development of CPPs in France from an institutional economics perspective, arguing that CPPs represent structural developments in the energy sector that show promise in encouraging the ecological transition through energy democracy. Greater institutionalization of these projects should allow them to evolve from isolated experiments to multiplication on a larger scale. This chapter highlights findings from an empirical investigation of CPPs that drew on several analytical frameworks useful for understanding these

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-14

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still marginal social innovation practices, which are in the process of being institutionalized. It frst defnes CPPs as emerging participatory RE projects. It then analyses how institutional changes create a context favourable to their spread. It examines what distinguishes them from other projects in the RE sector, comparing them to participatory projects more generally. It concludes by describing certain tensions arising from the heterogeneous nature of the partners and explains how the partners attempt to compromise to make the project succeed.1

2 Methods Our research was based on a hybrid methodology involving a quantitative approach (a questionnaire and statistical database analysis), a qualitative approach (semi-structured interviews), and a participatory approach (participatory action research (PAR) workshops). The PAR methodology was based on the tools and techniques developed by Chevalier and Buckles (2019). Semi-structured interviews (16) were conducted with RE experts between December 2019 and January 2020, followed by a further 13 interviews with stakeholders of three RE CPPs in February 2020. We also submitted an online questionnaire to a total of 31 CPPs and organized seven workshops with partners involved in CPPs. Additionally, we analysed the project database from Energie Partagée, a French non-proft organization that supports the development of citizen and participatory RE projects. This database allowed us to identify the stakeholders involved, the type of RE technology concerned, and the funding models, among other criteria that allowed an understanding of the scale and diversity of these projects. Following the collection of this information, we then carried out several types of analysis – a descriptive statistical analysis of the data, a socio-historical analysis of the RE sector, a processual analysis (Mendez, 2009) of three CPPs, a content analysis of the 16 expert interviews, and an analysis of participants during workshops. The processual analysis allows an understanding of social phenomena through contextualization, by studying how they are temporally embedded and interconnected at several levels and spheres. We aimed to explain the emergence and evolution of the phenomena related to CPPs by focusing on the relationships between independent and explained variables in the collected data.

3 Co-developed citizen, public, and private partnership projects: a sign of evolution in the renewable energy feld? 3.1 CPPs: a new type of participatory renewable energy project In the sector of RE in France, the most common type of participatory projects are ‘citizen’ projects, as they are termed by Énergie Partagée. The broad category of community projects encompasses a range of types:

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citizen projects, local governance projects, and industrial projects (Sebi and Vernay, 2020). All are characterized by governance that is open to citizens and sometimes to local or regional authorities. Citizen projects are distinguished by the fact that local stakeholders lead the development. The projects are anchored in a region, with the aim of utilizing its natural resources (sun, wind, etc.), in contrast to projects led by multinational companies, considered exogenous to the territory and with a purely proft-making motive. Citizen projects adopt a participatory approach. In the specifc case of co-developed CPPs, various combinations of stakeholders may be involved: e.g., (1) a group of residents, (2) a (or more than one) local authority, and (3) a private industrial developer. While they are still rare, projects including all three categories of primary partners are on the increase. In terms of governance and fnancing, three main categories of stakeholders participate in CPPs (see Figure C3.1): • • •

A public sector partner, which can be a local authority or a group of local authorities, a public energy utility, a mixed-economy company created by local authorities, or a Regional National Park; A private industrial partner that develops energy projects, ranging from large listed companies to regional or transnational small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); A civil society partner that can take various forms: a citizens’ collective, a cooperative, a group of committed individuals, a local nonproft, etc.

Public Partner

Private industrial partner

Supporting actors

CPP Co-developed project

Project management, Governance, Funding

Civil society Partner

Funders

Figure C3.1 The stakeholders involved in co-developed citizen, public and private partnership projects Source: J. Ballon.

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In terms of project stakeholders, participatory projects, including CPPs, can have several categories of participants (private sector, public sector, non-proft organizations, cooperatives). Some mobilize crowdfunding from citizens (residents of the municipality, the department, or the region who are committed to supporting the energy transition). Public sector stakeholders may sometimes buy shares of a created company resulting from the project or provide subsidies (e.g., from regional funds). Participants may also have the possibility to buy shares in the created company. These projects might equally receive funding from government subsidies and non-market resources, such as citizen volunteers. A CPP can thus be defned as a participatory project characterized by a process of cooperation and a commitment to joint sharing of costs from the development phase to the exploitation phase as well as joint returns on investment. All stakeholders participate in choosing the modes of production and in defning the decision-making processes and the distribution of wealth. 3.2 A descriptive statistical analysis of CPPs and their empirical modelling To highlight the main characteristics of CPPs and evaluate how they differ from other participatory projects, we conducted a descriptive statistical analysis by comparing the attributes of participatory projects and co-developed CPPs in France. We asked the stakeholders involved in CPPs to model their projects and supplemented this analysis with the results from the PAR workshops, which allowed us to identify criteria to measure cooperation between CPP members. The fndings of the analysis showed that the majority of French participatory RE projects generally focus on photovoltaic (PV) technology (almost 80% of projects), while wind power accounts for only 14%. Micro-hydro, methanization, and wood energy are marginal. Conversely, CPPs focus mainly on the wind (60%), followed by PV (33%). Other types of technology are occasional or absent. The focus on wind technology is due for four main reasons. First, these projects are more capital-intensive (there are greater risks and fnancing needs). Second, there is the lower social acceptability of wind projects, which are almost systematically contested by residents. Third, appeal procedures lengthen the development duration of projects. Finally, wind energy is faced with onerous regulatory constraints, particularly landscape issues, which can be a major obstacle. Thus, the CPP approach of co-production and co-decision-making appears to be a lever for managing and reducing project risks for developers of energy projects, particularly for wind power. We also identifed clear differences concerning the installed generating capacity in these projects. In participatory projects, this is quite heterogeneous, with an average installed capacity of 2111 kW, and a median of 249 kW.

196 Amélie Artis et al. The minimum installed capacity is 5 kW. For CPPs, the average installed capacity is around 11,528 kW, with a relatively close median of 11,400 kW, indicating a certain homogeneity in these projects. The average size of participatory projects is signifcantly smaller than CPPs, and the former is more heterogeneous than the latter.

WHEEL CIT'ENR PROJECT Y Criterion 1: Clear roles, shared values and aims 5

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Criterion 5: Involvement of local stakeholders and resources

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Figure C3.2 Model of co-developed citizen, public and private partnership projects by partners according to six criteria Source: E. Dias.

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The average total investment budget of a participatory project was €3.15 million, with a median investment of €400,000. There were large disparities in terms of budgets, according to the type of technology and the power capacity. For example, the 140 PV projects had an average budget of about €1.077 million each, while the 25 wind power projects had an average budget of €15.2 million each. The average total investment budget of a CPP was larger: about €13 million. The 14 CPP wind projects had a total investment budget of about €18.6 million each on average, and the 10 PV projects had an average total investment budget of about €6.1 million each. In the PAR workshops, one aim was to identify the internal characteristics of CPPs. We asked the partners to measure their cooperation according to six criteria (see Figure C3.2): (1) clear roles, shared values, and aims, (2) co-decision-making partners, (3) cooperation that is sought and facilitated, (4) shared risks and benefts, (5) involvement of local stakeholders and resources, (6) acceptability, communication, and transparency. 3.3 Co-developed CPPs: an evolution in the renewable energy sector The RE sector in France is changing under the infuence of developments such as liberalization and growth, which is resulting in the emergence of new actors in a process of concentration. We used four criteria to identify the ways in which projects are responding to these trends. •

• •

•

The stakeholders involved and the organization of the project: the nature of project participants (public, private, citizens/civil society) were an important distinction between participatory projects and conventional projects and between citizen projects and CPPs (Table C3.1); Governance: we observed a diversifcation in the governance of projects, with a shift from centralized governance by one stakeholder to more local and increasingly shared governance; Financing: we also observed a rise in local fnancing from residents and citizens, although this still remains marginal (regulation changes by the French Energy Regulatory Commission – which determines the capacity of a project to be developed – have facilitated participatory fnancing by citizens through the introduction of new criteria); Acceptance of the dominant RE model: this tends to be agreed upon by conventional projects, contested by citizens’ projects, and transformed into CPPs.

These identifed shifts are part of a long process of development in the energy sector, and in particular in RE. It should be noted that the emergence of new types of projects does not result in the disappearance of the old: multi-stakeholder projects coexist alongside citizen projects which coexist alongside conventional projects, resulting in a diverse range of project types (see Table C3.1).

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Table C3.1 The range of renewable energy projects in France and their characteristics based on our four criteria Criteria

Stakeholders involved and form of organization

Governance Financing

Acceptance of dominant renewable energy model

Conventional renewable energy projects

Participatory renewable energy projects

Conventional project

Citizen project

CPP co-developed project

One project developer that is an expert in the energy sector. Referred to as the ‘developer’ (private sector industry). Public utilities that have become private sector companies Multinationals Local companies National or international Centralized by the developer Financed by banks and shareholders = project developer acts as the intermediary for fnancing or directly fnances the project Use of procurement mechanisms Open to participatory fnancing for construction since the 2010s Agreement, reproduction

A group of individuals who do not work in the energy sector. Referred to as ‘citizens’ or ‘civil society’. Cooperatives or companies Local companies Local

A private sector stakeholder + a civil society stakeholder + a public sector stakeholder Cooperatives and companies Local Public utilities that have become private sector companies Multinationals Local companies National or international Shared by several types of partner Financed by banks and shareholders and Financed by local funds, investment companies, project leaders and investors (construction) and Financed directly by citizens

Controlled by citizens Financed by banks and shareholders = project leaders act as the intermediary for fnancing or directly fnance the project and Financed directly by citizens Contestation

Integration and transformation

Source: Artis et al. (2021).

Conventional RE projects carried out by energy production companies laid down the original principles structuring the sector. These stakeholders are specialists in the energy sector and develop projects through technical-administrative expertise (Debizet et al., 2016). The developers look

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for new locations, call on local authorities, and check the feasibility of the project according to geographic, land, and economic characteristics. The developer fnances and leads the project alone. In the last decade, citizens’ RE projects have emerged in France. These are characterized by multi-faceted questioning of the dominant model for energy development and management. They focus on promoting RE production that is managed and controlled by local residents. A central aim is that the project is led mainly by a group of citizens. This is often accompanied by specialized structures that organize themselves into a network (e.g., Taranis in Brittany). This process leads to the creation of a development company that brings together local stakeholders. The citizens’ group then initiates crowdfunding to directly or indirectly collect fnancing and local funding. Most of these projects are – at least initially – limited in terms of energy capacity: their development often aims primarily at meeting the needs of the residents involved in the project. The latest type of projects, CPPs, are characterized by their multi-stakeholder aspect, which includes a private-sector project developer, a citizens’ collective and a public partner. These projects involve shared and cooperative co-development that is not limited to crowdfunding. The fnancing modalities and the shareholding composition of CPPs allow the development of larger-scale installations than strictly citizen projects. Yet unlike conventional RE projects driven solely by private sector industries, CPPs are more participatory. Currently, this type of project represents a small percentage of RE development in France. They are more frequent in wind power projects, as these generate particular risks, including stringent regulations that frequently change, high investment costs, confictual situations with opponents and some residents, and disagreements with certain decentralized government agencies with the power to block projects. In this sense, multi-stakeholder cooperation offers a potential solution to alleviate some of these obstacles. Yet the number of these projects in France is low, especially compared to Germany or Denmark (Poize and Rüdinger, 2015; Wokuri, 2019). This scarcity requires an examination of the institutional context in terms of legislation and regulation.

4 How does the institutional environment support CPPs? In recent years, participatory RE projects have offered a new alternative to the dominant energy model. Their contribution has been to involve stakeholders who are not energy specialists but are direct energy benefciaries, such as residents and local authorities. In the context of global warming, interest in this type of project is increasing, supported by public policy trends in Europe. The institutional context of the RE feld helps to understand the factors that explain the emergence of participatory projects and more specifcally co-developed CPPs.

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4.1 Increase in renewable energy production and demand According to Eurostat, the European statistics institute, RE accounted for nearly 20% of gross energy consumption in Europe in 2019 compared to 8.5% in 2004 (Eurostat, 2020). In France, in 2019 the primary production of RE was 320 TWh. This is slightly lower than the primary consumption of RE due to the import balance of foreign trade in wood energy and biofuels. In 2019, RE represented almost 12% of primary energy consumption compared to 7.8% in 2009. Nonetheless, it remains in fourth place as a primary energy source, behind nuclear power (40%), oil products (29%), and natural gas (16%) (Eurostat, 2020). So while the share of RE is increasing, it remains quite low. The public energy agency supports growth in renewables and has increased the total amount of public spending. This reached 4.8 million euros in 2018: almost three times the level in 2011. This spending corresponds to subsidies allocated to RE producers as part of purchase obligation and remuneration supplement mechanisms. In 2018, most of this support went to PV (57%), ahead of wind power (26%), and other renewable electricity sources (16%). In this context, we empirically observed a reconfguration of modes of RE production, in which the dominant historical players have seen their role modifed by the arrival of new public and civil society stakeholders. In 2019, the OpinionWay Barometer for Qualit’ENR survey showed a growing demand for RE in the French population, who stated an intention to participate in these projects, creating a new space for their development. This survey found that: • • • •

97% of French people encourage the development of RE; 4 out of 5 consider that it should become the norm in their homes; −41% say that they have at least one RE system (61% of single-family homes): an increase of 6 points compared to 2018 and 9 points compared to 2017; 67% believe that it is up to them to take individual action to take part in the ecological transition, with 9 out of 10 saying they are ready to contribute to this (87%).

These results show that the majority indicate readiness to change their behaviour and willingness to participate in RE projects, although some opposition remains against wind projects. Despite this, many of the characteristics of the energy market are still marked by its post-1945 institutionalization trajectory. The French electricity mix is quite unique in the European Union, characterized by the predominance of nuclear power, with hydroelectric power in second place. The French model is based on the choice of nuclear power, industrial concentration structured on vertical integration, and an approach centred on energy demand (Evrard, 2014). There are both private and public energy providers, but a monopoly situation still exists (Artis, 2017). These contextual elements are not entirely favourable to the

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development of RE. Furthermore, there are several obstacles to participatory projects such as existing legislation, regulations, and infrastructure (Andriosopoulos and Silvestre, 2017). 4.2 A socio-historical analysis of the emergence of co-developed CPPs To understand shifts in RE projects in this ambivalent context, we carried out a socio-historical analysis, examining the major events in the history of multi-stakeholder projects in the sector with regard to changes in energy policy, legislation, and regulation in France. We used a processual analysis (Mendez, 2009) based on a socio-historical institutionalist reading of macroeconomic, mesoeconomic, and microeconomic changes (Labrousse, 2006). Our analysis allowed an understanding of how the RE sector is changing, and how multi-stakeholder projects – admittedly still a minority – are fnding a growing place. Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a succession of events contributing to the development of RE production. This is particularly visible at the level of European Union (EU) institutions on the one hand and the mobilization of civil society in favour of the energy transition on the other (Stober et al., 2021). Several EU directives have triggered an unprecedented dynamic in RE production through the establishment of a guaranteed pricing system. In 2020, the endpoint of our analysis, the concept of ‘citizen energy communities’ resulting from the EU directive was incorporated into French law. The diversifcation of RE stakeholders began to take place from the 2000s onwards in France, driven by a questioning of the historical monopoly of dominant energy companies and following the implementation of several EU directives aimed at liberalizing the energy market. Between the end of 2010 and 2015, legislation developed that was more favourable to RE in France, and several initiatives at the regional level were launched (Nadaï and al., 2015). Citizens’ actions and advocacy were critical in these changes to legislation. However, there was no clear energy policy (Rüdinger, 2016; Abdesselam, Renou-Maissant and Roussaf, 2019), and local authorities lacked the resources to develop projects involving citizen participation, with a few exceptions (Valette, 2005). As the process became more decentralized, this gave greater means to local authorities, especially regional governments, to support the development of RE. In some cases, this led to the implementation of public mechanisms favourable to multi-stakeholder projects, as in the French region of Occitanie, for example. The role of participatory projects has grown as local authorities have developed support programmes or dedicated bodies (e.g., Occitanie Regional Agency for Energy and Climate, AREC) and have promoted their emergence through a system of fnancial incentives to better integrate residents in partnerships. In this respect, the various networks at the European, national, and regional levels that bring together residents and local authorities are particularly favourable for the creation of CPPs. Examples include the European Federation of Energy

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Cooperatives (REScoop) and networks involved in the French energy transition that bring together local authorities, companies, non-profts, and training organizations. Our socio-historical analysis highlighted three main results. • • •

While public legislation, regulations, and tools exist to support participatory projects, these institutional arrangements can include moratoria of these projects, particularly CPPs; There has been a gradual institutionalization of participatory projects driven by events at the international, European, national, regional, and local levels; The RE sector continues to be characterized by legislation, regulations, and public tools with contrasting effects, with regard to their coordination between different levels of intervention (e.g., national and regional) (Rüdinger, 2016, Andriosopoulos and Silvestre, 2017).

In France, participatory RE projects struggled to develop in a signifcant way before the mid-2010s due to legal and regulatory constraints, and in particular weighty administrative procedures, plus an unstable national energy policy. The multi-scale nature of public systems creates interdependency that sometimes results in contradictory requirements between different governmental levels, as well as between EU directives and their implementation in French law. Some French measures are more advanced than at the European level (e.g., the bonus of the French Energy Regulatory Commission). Before 2015, there was no coherent national ‘public policy alternative’ (Evrard, 2014) to support RE production or to create public spaces and tools adapted to participatory projects (Rüdinger, 2016). By 2017, some bodies (e.g., the Economic, Social and Environmental Committee, a constitutional consultative assembly) began to emphasize the importance of local authorities in the development of participatory projects, and the role of citizens and local authorities became increasingly valued, especially at the regional and municipal level. Nonetheless, we observed that their development needs to be supported by more adapted mechanisms, regulations, and legislation. In short, over the last 20 years, participatory projects have undergone a process of multi-level institutionalization at several levels, despite certain legislative and regulatory constraints. Paradoxically, these obstacles have ultimately favoured the development of a set of hybrid co-development projects: CPPs. This has led the conventional energy industries to position themselves in relation to these participatory projects involving citizens and communities. 4.3 Tensions between different RE project models Despite the rise of co-development projects, many blind spots and tensions reduce the capacity of stakeholders with a vision of democratic energy

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transition to bring to fruition these projects, which are highly constrained by legal and regulatory aspects in particular. We identifed three persistent and major tensions: the centralization of the energy production and distribution system, contrasting approaches to energy as a commodity, and the ability to establish a polycentric management system capable of valorizing the different contributions of a collective of heterogeneous stakeholders. 4.3.1 The centralization of energy production and distribution One of the tensions that have arisen in the deployment of participatory projects is the centralization of the energy network and the effects this has on network connections, installation decisions, and self-consumption. Historically, the French energy sector has been centralized at several levels, including the development of new installations, purchasing policies, planning of energy production, fnancing, and the management of the network (Artis, 2017). Participatory projects have challenged this and called for increased decentralization of energy systems, in which citizens take an active part (Berka and Creamer, 2018; Johnson and Hall, 2014). Today, debates about individual and collective self-consumption also refect this opposition to centralization (Fontaine, 2019). Tension remains between regulations that have been historically developed and perpetuated by public institutions and dominant private stakeholders, while participatory projects prioritize the decentralization of decisions related to the development of a new installation and planning its energy production. 4.3.2 Energy as a public, private, or common good? The second point of tension concerns the nature of the resource – wind, sun, or water – as a private, public, or common good, and its economic and productive conceptualization. In France, access to energy is considered a public service, which is refected in the regulation of the sector in terms of pricing, network monopoly, equity of connection, management of power cuts, etc. The development of participatory projects revives the tension between energy as a private good, which results in investments by companies to develop and operate production sites, and energy as a public good, particularly in its renewable dimension. For developers, the exploration of productive sites is their core business and the source of their added value, through the transformation of an undefned good into a strategic asset with market value. In this process, local authorities can choose between two main strategies: to exploit local resources by renting out land to generate income or to manage these resources directly in an approach to public management of a collective heritage. The dynamics of participatory projects tend to encourage shared management: energy is then considered as a common good in the framework of a regional project, or on a smaller scale, in collective self-consumption projects.

204 Amélie Artis et al. 4.3.3 Polycentric governance between stakeholders Faced with this tension resulting from the management of energy and the nature of the resource, co-developed CPPs are part of a collective management approach that comes close to polycentric management in the sense of Ostrom (1990). Co-developed RE projects are complex both because of the cooperation required and the production costs. The collective polycentric governance of CPPs is the source of strong contradictory aims of stakeholders, giving rise to discussions around how to value their respective actions due to their different nature. One issue that is often insuffciently considered is how to take into account the different forms of work. For developers and local authorities, this is materialized by employment contracts or through an elected offcial’s salary or a developer’s payment for their expertise, which allows remuneration for the work hours involved in these projects. On the other hand, for the civil society partner, the work is mainly voluntary; its measurement and valuation are very different from salaried work. For volunteers, the aim of the work is mainly associated with raising the awareness and social acceptance of the project, increasing its visibility and success. However, this is less easily measurable and is less valued by the market, although it signifcantly contributes to the development of the project. Considering these three identifed tensions in different project models, shifts in the energy sector and issues related to climate change, it seems relevant to focus on the potential of CPPs. This emerging and innovative form of cooperative development appears to be a valuable means to make the energy transition more democratic while responding to the challenges of developing regional energy resources. However, one of the main diffculties in developing these projects lies in fnding a workable and lasting compromise between project stakeholders.

5 From disagreement to compromise: achieving cooperation in CPPs The singularity of co-developed CPPs is also one of their challenges: in these projects, different types of stakeholders must work together to establish collective rules that enable lasting cooperation. The partners involved in these projects may have disagreements. To achieve their goals, they must learn how to work together to establish collective rules in order to develop sustainable cooperation (Durand and Landel, 2015). To analyse this cooperation, we used the typology of the ‘worlds of justifcation’ according to Boltanski and Thévenot (1991). By studying in detail how ordinary people engaged in disputes justify their actions, these authors identify six different regimes (cités in their term) of justifcation. This approach helps to identify how stakeholders justify their actions, how they make their actions consistent with their values, and, ultimately, how they cooperate. According

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to these authors, all justifcations can be grouped into ‘worlds’, in which a ‘regime of reference’ defnes the common framework. They distinguish fve regimes: Civic, Domestic, Commercial, Industrial, and Opinion. In their actions, individuals can draw on justifcations belonging to several regimes: some are complementary, others are in confict. In the terminology of this approach, ‘disagreements’ indicate that the characteristics of each regime can potentially clash. The term ‘compromise’ should be understood as the solution found by individuals to coordinate and act in order to overcome this ordeal. We drew on this theoretical reading in order to qualify the structural presence of disagreements regarding ordeals in CPPs and identify how compromise was found. The process of cooperation between stakeholders, which occurs throughout the life of a project, crystallizes this. Using an analysis based on economies of magnitude, we examined the agreements and disagreements that occur during the co-development of projects. We considered that disagreements result from different interpretations by partners with the same regimes of reference. 5.1 Private developers draw on industrial and commercial regimes The partners involved in CPPs are heterogeneous in nature and justify their commitments differently. Private sector partners can be qualifed as ‘industrial’ based on their priority on effciency, performance, and reliability. They present themselves as experts and professionals in the RE sector. These characteristics make their framework of reference to the Industrial regime in the sense of the economics of magnitude (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991). They are concerned with questions of project effciency, respect for procedures and deadlines, and recognition of their contribution. These stakeholders also have a Commercial regime of reference, which materializes the search for gains and the sharing of economic benefts. 5.2 Public partners draw on industrial, civic, and commercial regimes Public sector partners have three frameworks of reference: they share expertise in relation to the Industrial regime, the issue of power-sharing relates to the Civic regime, and fnally, they prioritize sharing gains in line with the Commercial regime. Local authorities play a civic role in aiming for equity and solidarity in CPPs. But the adoption by public partners of the Commercial regime is new. They seek economic gains from these participatory projects through the creation of ad hoc companies or through public–private energy services companies. A context of decreasing national funding to local authorities partly explains this. The involvement of public partners such as municipalities in these projects contributes to redirecting gains towards local benefts (Énergie Partagée, 2019). These various frameworks of reference can generate tensions with the other partners.

206 Amélie Artis et al. 5.3 Civil society partners draw on civic, domestic, and commercial regimes The participation of civil society stakeholders in CPPs is explained by the aim to develop local and participatory RE. This differs from the dominant goals of the energy sector. The framework of reference of civil society partners is the Civic regime, promoting the democratization of RE. This position is in tension with the private sector partners, who have historically been responsible for energy planning and implementation. Another framework of reference for civil society stakeholders is the Domestic regime, which is characterized by friendly, informal ties and volunteer work. The Commercial regime is also a regime of reference is also in play, as these stakeholders also – in some cases, increasingly – seek market gain. We identifed contrasting interests between people committed to the energy transition and those seeking to supplement their income. 5.4 Support networks draw on industrial and civic regimes Of the support networks for these projects, Énergie Partagée occupies an important place as a national network (Rüdinger, 2016). It provides assistance to local and citizen projects and has expertise in participatory and collective methods of RE development. In this sense, this non-proft network is linked to both the Industrial regime and Civic regime. Like developers, this support network positions itself as an expert in RE. This situation can generate tensions between these two stakeholders, in particular local SMEs that have historically been involved in the development of participatory projects. Thus, Énergie Partagée justifes its role and builds its business model on its effciency and expertise in the Industrial regime of reference, but also roots its action in the Civic regime by prioritizing the participation of inhabitants, democracy, and solidarity, including its means of fnancing. In support networks, we observed disagreement related to the question of expertise about RE (see Table C3.2). Our analysis found that the development of CPPs generates a process of change – and sometimes confict – in order to make room for and legitimize the intervention of new stakeholders, such as citizens’ groups and local authorities, alongside a private sector industry. In an example of a CPP in the French region of Occitanie, the project originated from the refusal of a landowner to host a wind turbine on his farm under the conditions proposed by the developer (a large company). However, he was not opposed to wind turbines, so he brought together a group of residents, supported by Energie Partagée, to create an alternative project. As a result, the developer had to negotiate with this group to develop its project. In this way, CPPs need to seek agreements with partners regarding such issues as project management or legal status. These compromises suggest institutional tinkering, the effects of which are contrasting but still clearly visible, indicating the need to more fundamentally change institutions and, more broadly, socio-technical systems.

Stakeholders with this regime

Types of potential disagreement

Challenge

Civil society

Domestic

Source: Artis et al. (2021).

– Civil society – Public sector

Civic

Industrial

Participatory democracy rather than representative democracy

Industrial and Civic are in tension (Boltanski & Thevenot, 1991)

– Recognition of the legitimacy of residents/ local offcials & technical services – Power sharing

Cooperation rather than – Private sector Type of expertise: effciency in project companies – Technical skills whose value management – Civil society arises from the workforce, – Public sector degrees and qualifcations – Support networks and a historically dominant institutional position – Socio-technical through taking into account social acceptability – Local implantation Commercial – Private sector – Measuring the value of the Co-design of the companies partners’ contributions (value of economic model of the – Civil society volunteer work, etc.) project – Public sector – Rules regarding sharing the – Support networks gains

Regime

– Financing arrangements for the project, in particular for the riskiest phase (co-development) – Shareholders’ agreement – Spreading the risks of and then remuneration from the operation between shareholders – Legal structure of the SPV – Shareholders’ agreement – Division of roles according to expertise and knowledge – Clarifcation of the organization of activities between stakeholders – Distribution of decisionmaking power

– Clarifcation and formalization of roles – Mutual recognition of complementary expertise – Legal structure of the special purpose vehicle (SPV)

Compromises

Table C3.2 The four types of stakeholders participating in CPPs and their potential disagreements, challenges, and compromises

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6 Conclusion Since the early 2000s, the RE sector in France has undergone signifcant changes in terms of technology, the rising number of projects, the types of regulations and support mechanisms, and professional practices. In parallel, the stakeholders involved in these projects and their governance is also changing. One of the major drivers of these transformations is a will for a more democratic energy transition. The social acceptability of RE is growing, but this can still be a major obstacle, particularly with regard to wind power. In recent years, the appearance of co-developed CPPs associating three categories of stakeholders (public sector, private sector, and citizens) signals a new momentum for change in the feld. It is interesting to note that increasing concentration in the RE feld since the 2010s, which followed the creation of a large number of SMEs in the early 2000s, has heralded the arrival of players such as TotalEnergies, which seeks to position itself in the RE feld. These changes can also be seen in the strategy of private sector developers, who are more willing to accept citizen participation and are developing a range of services in this area. New players are emerging, such as energy non-profts and electricity suppliers, that seem to accept a new strategy based on CPPs. These co-developed projects represent a new approach to the development, production, management, and consumption of energy from a perspective of a more democratic energy transition. As a response to climate change, these projects help to convey a new social vision that changes the relationship between stakeholders and the natural resources of their locality, and the way these are valued, requiring an evolution in the sector’s institutions and socio-technical systems (Raineau, 2011). This incremental process of institutional change is already being made by CPPs on a local level, by encouraging local participation and governance between all relevant partners. Local partners are active from the outset of the project and cooperate in strategic decisions, the implementation of the project, and its success. The emergence of co-developed multi-stakeholder projects contributes to the re-politicization of energy production choices through the involvement of non-professionals (residents and local authorities), attesting to a phenomenon of reappropriation of energy issues, and the development of natural resources at a local level, for public authorities and citizens. The ability to develop cooperation between heterogeneous stakeholders with complementary skills is central, and private sector experts and public offcials must be open to questioning. The aim is increased democratization, which involves a critical approach to the fgure of the expert engineer or the senior civil servant. The dominant stakeholders are required to go beyond the role of expert consultants to co-manage projects, respect information and deliberation spaces, guarantee the transmission of project progress, and discuss the distribution of votes and the roles and benefts of the project company.

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Nonetheless, the institutional relationship in the RE sector is fragile due to contrasting legitimacies, fnancial margins, and available resources, which generate recurring tensions and weaken viable compromises within this space (Wokuri, 2020). The capacity of CPPs to transform a sector still dominated by private companies remains highly circumscribed by a limited number of RE production parks. These contextual constraints weigh on the further growth of these promising projects.

Note 1 This chapter describes the results of the Cit’EnR research project (https:// websie.cefe.cnrs.fr/cit-enr/) funded by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) (2019–2021).

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Section D: Introduction

Digital services for peer-to-peer communities Regulatory framework and market Section B of this book looked at the collective self-consumption scheme that allows a community to share energy produced within it according to rules defined by the community, thus removing this production from the electricity market. Section C has shown how another form of energy community – the citizens’ cooperative – has emerged on wider geographical scales (local, catchment area, region), by acting directly on the national market. The French network Enercoop positions itself as a supplier that buys renewable energy from producers and delivers it to its cooperative subscribers (Maitre). The local citizen cooperatives of the Energie Partagée network produce electricity, either alone (Gomez et al.) or with partners (Artis et al.), and sell it to aggregators or suppliers (including Enercoop). Section D complements these previous sections by focusing on digital platforms linking producers and consumers at a mostly local scale. The three chapters address this theme from complementary angles: 1 Business models (BMs): Dede and Heyder present a typology of digital business models (BMs) through digital platforms for local energy communities in Germany. 2 The nature and extent of a possible re-structuring of the socio-energy system: Schönbeck, Gorbatcheva and Schneiders analyse how peer-topeer and digital blockchain-like approaches offer the prospect of an Energy Internet structured around energy communities. 3 The economic value created by trading platforms: Cortade and Poudou put forward a model of the economic behaviour of actors able to invest in intermittent energy production facilities and to value surpluses according to the local market, as allowed by a digital platform. These three different angles present common findings or assumptions: – An understanding of the concept of energy community defined by the fact of sharing energy production, storage and exchange activities through digital platforms

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-15

214 Section D Introduction: Digital peer-to-peer services – The emergence of digital platforms and associated marketplaces using, depending on the chapter, the keywords smart grid, blockchain, smart contracts and the Internet of Energy and Things – An approach centring on innovative business models offering new services and, more signifcantly, new forms of knowledge sharing and links, or even cooperation, among members of energy communities. – The coordination of “peer-to-peer” exchanges with large (national/ European) markets. It is therefore clearly not a question of autarkic communities. This point is touched on by Cortade and Poudou, who show that the latter are of less economic interest than a model linking self-consumption and a two-way exchange. The concept of the market is clearly a structuring factor in the three chapters. Each stresses the importance of regulation by the state and the extent of the changes that could be brought about by the recent European directives. These directives make the consumer a key player in the energy transition, with the vocation of taking a position in the CECs (Citizen Energy Communities) and RECs (Renewable Energy Communities). The authors emphasize the extent to which the regulatory framework is decisive for the emergence of peer-to-peer digital platforms. They stress that the directives are based on the hypothesis that the success of the European clean energy transition partly depends on enabling citizens to shape it by taking a more active role than in the traditional one-directional energy system. Thus, the chapters take up the hypothesis of the impact of a greater acceptance of renewable energies based on a greater participance. The so-called “citizen” motivation to participate in exchanges within energy communities is associated with values beyond economic interest, such as the common good, a “mission-driven” and not “proft-driven” vision of companies, and the shift to a rationale of service instead of possession (Dede and Heyder). Flexibility is mentioned by all the authors without being at the heart of their analyses, which take the business models of digital platforms and local markets as their starting point. At the same time, discussing the impact on the global socio-technical energy system, Schönbeck, Gorbatcheva and Schneiders point out the risk of blackout posed by a semi-autonomy of digitalized energy communities and by underinvestment in production capacities if the local or extra-local market functions chaotically. In view of these dangers, they call for a certain amount of regulation to mitigate some of the risks of decentralization from the energy system around digital platforms, while also highlighting the advantages of moving towards decentralization. All the chapters show that a diversifed range of possible deployment methods is open at this stage. They bear witness to the fact that there are still numerous experiments and trials ongoing, many of them embryonic and exploratory. As desired by the national and European legislators of collective self-consumption (Section B) as well as citizens’ cooperatives (Section

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C), platform schemes are motivated by citizen participation in the energy production and consumption system. These schemes are based on a coordination convention within the community of the relevant marketplace, a point not mentioned by the authors of the sections on collective self-consumption (Section B) and citizen cooperatives (Section C). The communities described in Section D adopt a coordination convention among their members, which is antagonistic because it is based on holacracy. How could coordination via a marketplace ever exist between a community practising holacracy with other parallel communities? Would another encompass the frst? In other words, if semi-autonomous energy communities were nested within each other, could they be connected to each other according to coordination conventions as antagonistic as the market and holacracy? All these questions remain to be answered.

Chapter D1. Emerging digital business models for energy communities: Enablers for citizen participation in the energy transition? - Perspectives from Germany, by Christine Dede and Monika Heyder This chapter focuses on business models (BMs) based on digital platforms and starts with an analysis of the situation in Germany, also exploring the opportunities for citizen participation. To this end, the authors introduce and explore the concept of “Digital Energy Communities”. Starting from 106 BMs in Germany, the authors converge on 26 representative and actual BMs, classifed according to the type of citizen engagement. These new BMs are characterized by the existence of online marketplaces, “supported by software and virtual service products that visualize, analyse and forecast data and monitor, evaluate and even manage renewable assets”. The chapter begins with a review of the literature on how energy communities are shaping the energy transition, including the decentralization of power system operations. It identifes the digital value of service activity and brokerage business models interlinked with the following participatory citizen values: awareness-raising, role of the citizen, restriction, ownership and decision-making, transparency and trust. The analysis draws up a typology of BMs including: the Financial Compensation model; the Grid Services model; Marketplaces (local Internet of Energy vs Distant and non-physical Internet of Energy); Digital Platform between provider and non-local aggregators; Local Energy Market (LEM) (inc. peer-to-peer) and Tenant Electricity. The following questions are then answered: •

What are digital energy community BMs? BMs usually not emerging from the fnal consumers.

216 Section D Introduction: Digital peer-to-peer services • •

What does the landscape of digital energy community BMs in Germany look like? Mainly marketplaces. Do digital energy community BMs provide opportunities for citizen participation, and if so, how? The digital value might help increase citizens’ involvement but there does not seem to be any direct correlation.

Chapter D2. Digital technologies for consumer-centred energy markets: Opportunities and risks of an energy internet, by Hugo Schönbeck, Anna Gorbatcheva and Alexandra Schneiders This chapter is based on research and thorough inquiry from conversations with stakeholders, highlighting their opinions and original insights. The authors assume that there is a need for the movement away from a centralized network that has worked “wonderfully” with fossil fuels but needs to be reorganized to move to renewable - fow - energy. To do so, it is assumed that the consumer must be engaged to take part in as yet unknown socio-technical innovations. The authors nevertheless mention solutions and technical paradigms, such as the internet seen as a key technology, bringing to bear the concept of the Internet of Energy, reminding us of the historical foundations of this concept as proposed by Rifkin. Another solution is the use of blockchain and DLT (Digital Ledger Technologies) approaches. The authors also discuss the concept of the market, with its associated opportunities and risks. Among the opportunities, they highlight the interest in involvement and coordination at local levels to move towards peerto-peer exchange models which would be the basis of an Energy Internet. This would allow for both monetary and non-monetary exchanges between actors who will be all the more inclined to trade the closer they are to each other in terms of energy communities. Among the benefts arising from decentralized markets and organizations, the authors also highlight stability. The chapter puts forward the prospect of potential new stability brought about by decentralization, and an Energy Internet stabilizing at each of its nodes without the risk of congestion spreading by a domino effect on the scale of the whole system. Among the risks mentioned is the possibility of price fuctuation, instability of the technical system (congestion, etc.), or redundant investments, which could result from a lack of coordination and decentralized implementation without certain regulations. In other words, to quote the authors, “On the one hand, the natural movement towards greater autonomy is therefore desirable; on the other hand, unguided autonomy is undesirable”. To support their argument, the authors break down the energy system into fve layers (power; hardware and software; market and transaction; social and economic value and policy and regulation) that need to be deconstructed and reorganized to move towards an Energy Internet.

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According to the authors, the right interaction between the fve layers is crucial for the implementation of decentralized energy markets. The challenge is to “align” these fve layers, notably by engaging consumers and new aggregators, as well as stressing “the role of regulation and policymaking”, as incentives and regulations adapted to each level must be put in place. All this leads the authors “to a proposal for a new architecture and structuring of the socio-technical system of energy production”: This brings holarchy and its associated semi-autonomous energy systems to the fore. The classifcation of a national energy system according to holarchic principles offers possibilities for greater autonomy, which will not be entirely unguided, and thus supports the energy transition. One of the most interesting contributions of this chapter is the discussion of the blockchain approach for energy communities, which asks whether this would be a troublesome mismatch or the perfect marriage. The advantages and disadvantages of an intrinsically decentralized approach without a trusted third party are explored, and it is mentioned how this could lead to confdentiality issues when the approach is open. At the same time, such an approach poses problems of scalability and adaptability to the constraints of the energy sector. The potential limitations raised are listed as speed, transaction throughput, scalability, privacy, impossibility to execute the right to be forgotten, the need for liberty of switching suppliers easily and other aspects that can occur when applying a new technology, a new system even, to an existing industry.

Chapter D3. Digital energy trading platforms: An economic analysis, by Thomas Cortade and Jean-Christophe Poudou This chapter makes the transition from the question of digital value to the modelling that is at the heart of Chapter E, using a modelling framework of digital platform trading with a view to making an analysis in terms of economic value. The authors raise the question of what can emerge and be modelled at the interface of consumer motivations, incentives to install PV, and the possibility of peer-to-peer trading. In other words, they explore how energy exchange can be modelled in energy communities via a digital platform, which is in itself an online marketplace and in which the participants are consumers who form a connected energy community via their digital platform. The chapter begins by recalling some of the most signifcant experiments and projects, such as the iconic Brooklyn experiment based on a microgrid and the use of blockchains, and smart contracts (Ethereum) which aim to carry out local transactions and set a local price for energy. They point out that these approaches, initiated in developed and energy-connected countries, could also be solutions for emerging countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia and Colombia.

218 Section D Introduction: Digital peer-to-peer services This chapter goes on to explain the emergence of P2P energy trading platforms in the wake of the new regulatory framework and European directives, the socio-economic value attached to local sharing, the principle of altruism, and the creation of links between the actors who participate in exchanges in local platforms. It also highlights a potential interest in environmental impacts: peer-to-peer platforms may play a role in the plan to decarbonize the European economy, which aims at a 55% reduction by 2030, enabling mass exchange of decarbonized energy, such as sun or wind. The chapter further emphasizes the emergence of blockchain and smart-contract technologies, leading to debates on the trade-off between transparency, security and cost. It addresses the challenges of peer-to-peer electricity, noting the complexity of designing a market management tool with the constraints of the physical operations of energy networks, and the question of pricing. All the elements are therefore in place for Part 5, which presents the economic modelling of a platform approach that tries to put a value on participants’ surplus energy; this platform would thus act as an aggregator, attaching a value to the energy either locally or on the energy markets. Based on their economic model, the authors conclude, among other things, that digital platforms are an incentive for sharing energy, except in the case of autarky.

D.1 Emerging digital business models for energy communities Enablers for citizen participation in the energy transition? – Perspectives from Germany Christine Dede and Monika Heyder 1  Energy communities and the role of digitalization 1.1  Energy communities shaping the energy transition The development of renewable Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) restructures the actor landscape in the energy system. Instead of single prominent players predominating the electricity market, new renewable competitors established their position as new agents (Kotilainen et al., 2016; Mathiesen et al., 2015; Pasetti, Rinaldi and Manerba, 2018). Increased shares of variable Renewable Energy Sources (RES) necessitate matching demand and supply on a more fine-grained temporal and spatial level, requiring extensive data availability (Kubli, Loock and Wüstenhagen, 2018). Prosumers produce and consume electricity (Parag and Sovacool, 2016) and are acknowledged as crucial in a flexible energy system (Kotilainen et al., 2016). In the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED II) (2018/2001/EU), the European Union (EU) has defined ‘renewable self-consumer’ […] [as] a final customer operating within its premises located within confined boundaries or where allowed by the Member States, on other premises, who generates renewable electricity for its own consumption, and may store and sell self-generated renewable electricity, provided that, for non-household renewable self-consumers, those activities do not constitute their primary commercial or professional activity. (Art. 2 (14), RED II) This acknowledgement derives from two assumptions: 1 Prosumers are regarded as active agents on the distribution level and receive increased attention in overcoming the challenges of (variable) renewable-based energy systems due to collective self-consumption (Parag and Sovacool, 2016). Through short time storage of electricity in

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batteries or Electric Vehicles (EVs), or by adapting electricity demand through Demand-Side Management (DSM) measures, prosumers may offer ancillary services (Brown, Hall and Davis, 2019; Kubli, Loock and Wüstenhagen, 2018). 2 Prosumers who produce and consume electricity are key actors, involving citizens in the energy transition, enabling participation and greater acceptance of the energy transition (Kotilainen et al., 2016; Inês et al., 2020; Ruotsalainen et al., 2017). Apart from individual prosumers, examples exist of prosumer groups forming energy communities. However, the term “energy community” is ambiguous. The EU has provided defnitions in the Clean Energy Package (CEP) for “Renewable Energy Communities” (RED II) Art. 2 (16) and “Citizen Energy Communities” Internal Market for Electricity Directive (IMED) Art. 2 (11). These defnitions acknowledge electricity market players without primarily commercial interests receiving the right to engage in generation, distribution, supply, consumption, aggregation, energy storage, trade, sharing and other services (Reis et al., 2021; Roberts et al., 2019; IMED Art. 2 (11)). However, no concise defnition of “energy community” exists so far. The core elements that glue community energy projects (regarded as a subgroup of energy communities) together are citizen participation (individual or collective), citizen ownership, aiming to provide beneft to the local community and common interest and location that create the community (Creamer et al., 2018; Gorroño-Albizu et al., 2019; Reis et al., 2021). The motivation for founding community energy is described as “mission-driven” instead of “proft-driven” (Creamer et al., 2018; Kahla et al., 2017). However, “community energy” or “energy cooperatives” can be understood as a form of an energy community with a particular focus on energy generation. In contrast, “energy community” is a more comprehensive form of collective energy projects. Gui and MacGill defne “clean energy community” as “social and organizational structures formed to achieve specifc goals of its members primarily in the cleaner energy production, consumption, supply, and distribution, although this may also extend to water, waste, transportation, and other local resources” (2018, p95). De São José, Faria and Vale proposed a defnition for “energy communities”: “Community of prosumers who share or sell energy inside the community and/or for the grid, normally place-based (but not exclusive)” (2021, p4). Both defnitions underline the function and activities of an energy community instead of aspects such as ownership, size or locality. We understand the “energy community” in line with the regulation RED II and the IMED as a group of people joining together to realize energy system relevant activities such as energy consumption, production, prosumption, storing, sharing, trading, buying or selling collectively. The next part focuses on how digitalization infuences BM innovation in prosumer communities.

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1.2 Digitalization as a driver for business model innovation The German term “Digitalisierung” describes in English both “digitization”, referring to the creation of digital versions of analogue data, and “digitalization”, describing changes in processes and data use (Rachinger et al., 2019). Digitization sets the framework for digitalization and digital transformation, characterizing society’s fundamental systemic shift in technology use, institutions and economy (Rachinger et al., 2019). Digitalization creates opportunities for novel products, services and most signifcantly, new forms of cooperation and knowledge sharing between agents. Existing BMs will be challenged in its wake, and opportunities for novel BMs arise (Bundesverband der Energie-und Wasserwirtschaft, BDEW, 2016; Dellermann Fliaster and Kolloch, 2017; Rachinger et al., 2019). The BM concept describes the logic behind the business operation and is defned by three elements: (1) value proposition, (2) value creation and (3) value capture (Remane et al., 2017). Value creation represents the worth of the offered product or service (value proposition) monetized through payments of customers (value capture) (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017). Value proposition not only means creating a fnancial beneft but also refers to social, ethical and environmental values (Croci and Molteni, 2021). Exploiting the opportunities of digitalization, novel BMs emerge, which we characterized as digital BMs. Value creation in digital BMs is different from traditional ones since the value is typically not created directly by the product or service but by its use (Remane et al., 2017; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Remane et al. explain that “a business model can be categorized as digital if digital technologies trigger fundamental changes in these value dimensions” (2017, p41). How digitalization helps to foster the emergence of novel BMs for prosumption follows mainly three levels gradually changing from place-based (step 1) to place independent (step 3) BMs (see Figure D1.1). Digitization leads to (1) a network of “smart” technologies communicating with each other and allowing for automation, based on the Internet of Things (IoT) (BDEW, 2016; Mathiesen et al., 2015; Römer et al., 2017). Remotely controllable energy devices linked to energy management systems can combine production and storage infrastructures: batteries, EV, rooftop PV and other devices based on the fexibility needs of the system, creating a “fexible prosumer BM” (Bellekom, Arentsen and van Gorkum, 2016; Kubli, Loock and Wüstenhagen, 2018) (Figure D1.1 level 1). Subsequently, prosumers are virtually linked via digital platforms and, with it, the number of actors increases. The energy ecosystem or provided DERs from prosumers are pooled through an aggregator. Smart grids allow for bi-directional communication of producers, consumers and prosumers, enabling more fexible production and consumption patterns (Bellekom, Arentsen and van Gorkum, 2016). The emerging BM is described as a “community Virtual Power Plant” (cVPP) (Mourik et al., 2019) (Figure D1.1 level 2). Place independent prosumption allows generation

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and consumption simultaneously, however not in the exact physical location. Virtual self-consumption could allow prosumption independent of place but is still a theoretical concept due to regulatory constraints. However, this concept may become relevant in the future as a BM for “virtual energy communities” (Lettner et al., 2018) (Figure D1.1 level 3). Digitalization triggers the emergence of novel BMs and modernizes traditional BMs (Leisen, Steffen and Weber, 2019; Remane et al., 2017). So far, traditional individual self-consumption was mainly based on (a) selling physical components such as PV plants, meters, inverters and (b) selling services for their installation, maintenance and operation. The value created for the customer was based on (ownership of) a physical PV plant and the opportunity for consumer cost reduction. Through digitalization and linked applications, the primary value for the customer is not necessarily the possession of a PV power plant but the offered services. In addition to the above (a) and (b), digital BMs include further (c) the transparency and visualization of the actual power generation and consumption linking smart meters and (interactive) customer interface, e.g., via mobile applications. The portfolio of digital BM includes further (d) controllable energy consumption devices when coupled with energy management systems, (e) automatic maintenance support of the PV plant, (f) a platform for trade and sharing of electricity (Brown, Hall and Davis, 2019; Kubli, Loock and Wüstenhagen, 2018). A digital BM differs from a “traditional” BM in three main aspects (as depicted in Figure D1.2): •

They explicitly draw on advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and digitalization.

Figure D1.1 Process of emerging digital business models enabled through digital innovation

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Figure D1.2 Comparison of Traditional vs. Digital BM for the example of electricity supply

• •

They include additional components such as interfaces, platforms organizational models to increase visibility and interactivity. Their value is not created by the product itself but by additional digital services such as a multifunctional app that combines platform services, monitoring, and managing the prosumer’s assets (BDEW, 2016).

We will refer to these aspects as “digital value” to signify their importance to value creation. The following chapter describes the research gaps and frames the research questions. 1.3 Research gap and questions Current research has not suffciently uncovered how digitalization enables or hinders citizens’ participation in the clean energy transition. This holds especially true regarding the infuence of digitalization on bottom-up initiatives such as energy communities. Moreover, in-depth knowledge is lacking about how digitalization transforms citizens’ roles and the emergence of collective energy projects. The emergence of digital energy community BMs is a relatively new concept we want to shed light on. The connotation of the term communities changed with a strongly connected, distributed and digitized energy system. We hypothesize that this led to an increase in novel BMs that emerged explicitly during the last decades to enable citizens to become active customers in the energy system. We attempt to provide an overview of digital BMs in Germany supporting the clean energy transition by focusing on those that mention, create or foster “energy communities” as part of their value proposition. Furthermore, we

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will discuss how these BMs lead to more robust participation of citizens in the renewable energy transition and may help democratize the traditional energy system. Our research questions are thus: • • •

What are digital energy community BMs? How can we describe Germany’s digital energy community BMs landscape? Do digital energy community BMs provide opportunities for citizen participation, and if yes, in which way?

The following describes the applied methods. 1.4 Method Analysing the scientifc literature, we may differentiate two types of digital BMs: (1) that are innovative in themselves and therefore “novel” and (2) that modernize existing (analogue) BMs (Rachinger et al., 2019, Remane et al., 2017). We identifed several BMs that fulfl both criteria of (a) used by (and for the creation of) energy communities and (b) adding a “digital value”. Therefore, the frst part of the work draws on the research on BMs that serve the above-stated requirements within the energy sector. In the next step, we will put these against our defnition of a digital energy community BM. Apart from digital energy community BMs, a variety of service BMs for self-consumers and energy communities exist that are not analysed in greater detail. Following a mixed-method approach, our analysis is defned by three steps: I Identify criteria for a potential enabler role for participation • Literature-based criteria development: Through scientifc literature research using google scholar and based on previous research, we identifed fve criteria that help conclude how these BMs may or may not foster citizen participation in the energy transition. II Identify emerging digital energy community BMs • Desk research: Quantitative though not exhaustive review of energy community BMs in Germany. Researching the terms “digital energy community”, “energy community”, “energy community business model”, “Strom Gemeinschaft”, “Energie Gemeinschaft”, “Energie Genossenschaft”, “Prosumer Gemeinschaft”, “prosumer community”, “Stromcloud” and “Strom teilen” using the google search engine yielded in a total of more than 3 billion entries from which 106 were identifed as relevant in the German context. From this primary selection, another 80 entries were removed since either the company was not yet or not anymore existent, and/or the BM unclear. Finally, 26 BMs were selected regarding actuality and representativeness for

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the energy community BM concept. These were analysed in greater detail. For transparency, Table D1.2 (see at the end of this chapter) summarizes the main attributes. • Classifcation of BMs: Analysing the different roles and responsibilities of the involved actors, catalysing the “digital value” of the BMs, and providing a classifcation of the discovered BM models. III Criteria-based discussion • Application of criteria: We discuss the fndings from our analysis using the developed criteria in part three to evaluate our results from step I. • The conclusion and suggestions for further research close the chapter. The research draws on an internet review focusing on digital BMs for energy communities in the electricity sector, some of them comprising heat provision in their portfolios. The chapter is structured as follows: The frst part (1) forms the introduction, and a state-of-the-art discussion on energy community BMs (2) sets the regulatory framework for energy communities in Germany, (3) is dedicated to the identifcation of criteria for a potential enabler role for participation and democratization. Part (4) maps out the BM landscape in Germany, highlighting the “digital value of the BMs.” (5) The last part discusses the fndings based on developed criteria, (6) provides a conclusion and suggestions for further research.

2 Regulatory framework for energy communities in Germany The Act on the Digitisation of the Energy Transition (dt. Gesetz zur Digitalisierung der Energiewende, GDEW) was passed in 2016 centring on the smart-meter rollout in Germany. Smart meters tracking prosumers demand and production play a central role in the investigated BMs. Another regulation of the opportunities and duties of prosumers is the German Renewable Energy Act 2021 (dt. Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG 2021). In it, prosumption “self-supply” is defned in § 3 (19) EEG 2021 as the consumption of electricity by a natural or legal person in direct spatial premises with the electricity generation facility, if no public grid is used and the fnal consumer is the same person as the operator of the plant. Therefore, the person consuming the electricity must be identical to the one operating the plant and thus generating the power. Collectively acting prosumers, prosumer groups or energy communities are poorly recognized and regulated. The only regulation in this regard that we may link is “tenant electricity” (dt. Mieterstrom, §21 EEG 2021) which allows tenants to consume electricity generated on the rooftops of their apartment building or adjacent apartment buildings (see Figure D1.5). The European CEP has provided numerous indications that would beneft collective prosumers, explicitly in the RED II and the IMED § 8 give new rights and responsibilities to Distributed System Operators and “active

Reference

Implemented

RED II, Article Partly Renewable energy 22, 2 communities are entitled to access all suitable energy markets both directly or through aggregation in a nondiscriminatory manner

Allow energy sharing of RED II, Article Unclear, not renewable individual 21, 4 explicitly and collective forbidden self-consumers Address unjustifed RED II, Article Partly regulatory barriers 21, 4 to renewables selfconsumption, including for tenants

No double charges RED II, Article Partly for renewable self21, 2 (b) consumers when storing electricity No non-discriminatory RED II, Article Yes, partly fees for self-generated 21, 3 (c) renewable electricity below 30 kW

EU regulation

Reference

Currently, tenants can only indirectly beneft through tenant electricity; this is not a form of self-supply in the legal sense. However, EEG 2021 introduced signifcant improvements for tenant electricity. There are specifc regulations for citizen energy projects to participate in tenders. In general, they can participate in the market. The term “renewable energy communities” has not been legally def ned yet.

EEG 2021, § 36g, § 3 (15)

EEG 2021, § 21 (3), § 48a

With the introduction of § 61l, this has EEG 2021, § 61l, § 61j been eliminated. However, in reality, double charges can still apply in some confgurations with batteries. The EEG 2021 exempted self-supply from EEG 2021, § 61b EEG surcharge if the yearly consumption does not exceed 30 MWh and if the installed capacity is not higher than 30 kW. Not clearly def ned. However, there are No def nition of energy already start-ups selling smart energy sharing (contradiction management for sharing electricity. with self-consumption)

Explanation

Table D1.1 Implementation of EU regulation in Germany

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customers” (prosumers/fexumer) for the production, storage and use of electricity. These active customers shall be encouraged to react to market signals with fexible consumption when the electricity market prices are low and supply is high. Regarding recognizing renewable energy communities (RED II) through integrating the EU defnition into the regulations and policies, German policymakers fall short in establishing policy targets for energy community development. The renewable energy communities are not recognized yet; the German code entitles the fnal customer to participate in “citizen energy companies”, allowing different legal forms such as cooperatives and civil law partnerships (COME RES, 2021). Regarding frameworks for consumption, production and energy sharing, the German regulators did not adequately implement the RED II. For instance, energy sharing is unregulated, still, and thus open for interpretation (Table D1.1). At the same time, currently, several BMs address electricity sharing as the core component of digital BMs. Digital energy community BMs and their recognition in the regulatory frameworks are a recent development. Thus, they might be considered from a business perspective in an “early stage” (Reis et al., 2021).

3 Criteria for citizen participation The existing research underlines that the success of the European clean energy transition depends on enabling citizens to shape it by taking a more active role than in a traditional one-directional energy system (Holstenkamp and Radtke, 2018; RED II; Koirala et al., 2018). Holstenkamp and Radtke (2018) emphasize that citizen participation in a transition leads to social acceptance, underlining the difference between measures imposed or chosen by the community or community groups. Although most German citizens generally support the idea of the energy transition, the number of people who criticize its implementation is growing (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Science, 2020). However, how can citizens participate? On a frst level, raising awareness and distributing knowledge is the frst step towards participation processes (Koirala et al., 2018). Informed citizens aware of recent developments can take a more active role in the local, national or European energy landscape, transforming a passive end-user in a centralized system to an active market participant in a decentralized bidirectional energy system. In an enabling environment, ongoing and increasing citizen participation may lead citizens or citizen collective (communities) to steer their own projects and develop novel BMs. In Figure D1.3, arrows indicate the dynamic permeability of the three participation levels. The number of citizens decreases with the increased level of involvement. Besides, civic engagement emerges in various forms, ranging from social movements to grassroots civil society groups. These result in different claims to what public participation looks like (Chilvers and Longhurst, 2016).

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Figure D1.3 Participation process based on Koirala et al. 2018, and Jullie and Serkine 2016

For application on energy community BMs, we identifed fve criteria for energy community BMs that would help citizens to participate in the energy transition: •

•

Awareness-raising: The term energy citizenship describes the public’s awareness of its responsibility towards climate change, environmental equity and justice, underlining the potential for (collective) energy actions (Devine-Wright, 2007). Information and knowledge sharing are key to empowering and allowing for the active agency, uplifting the user transformation level (Jullien and Serkine, 2016; Koirala et al., 2018). BMs that inform citizens about the energy transition raise awareness by targeting the customers’ environmental concerns (Kalkbrenner and Roosen, 2016; Koirala et al., 2018). Ultimately, the providers need to be transparent about citizens’ roles and participation levels in the respective BMs. Role of citizens: By exploring and creating new forms of participation (David and Schönborn, 2018; Reinsberger et al., 2015), citizens are active agents taking ownership of the energy transition (Van Der Schoor and Scholtens, 2015). However, Lennon et al. (2020) highlight the possible diverging motivation of different stakeholders to emphasize the citizen’s role in the energy transition. They argue that neoliberal considerations, seemingly second by the offcial discourse, appropriate energy citizenship by primarily considering “citizen-as-consumer” consuming the “commodity” energy. This action removes agency from the citizens, “leaving them largely in a disconnected and disempowered” and shifts responsibility from the national to the individual level (Lennon et al.,

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•

•

•

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2020, p184). Therefore, the role foreseen for citizens within a BM is crucial for the overall level of involvement. Restriction: In principle, all citizens should be able to participate in the energy transition independent of social background, fnancial situation, geographic location, age or other criteria. Since a community requires common ground - be it the exact location (community of location) or the same interest (community of interest) - not everyone can, of course, be addressed by an energy community BM (De São José, Faria and Vale, 2021). Therefore, energy community BMs will likely have limitations to create this commonality. However, the goal of providers will be to increase the number of participants in order to generate higher revenues. The digital BM provides digital values through ICT (platforms, apps, etc.) that may form barriers for those unfamiliar. The criterion restriction is strongly linked to ownership and decision-making. Ownership and decision-making: Financial and economic participation includes the ownership of renewable assets (Radtke et al., 2020) or the consideration of citizens in the entire structure of the BM, from value creation to proft-sharing of energy community BMs (Reis et al., 2021). According to Kalkbrenner and Roosen (2016), an essential factor that increased the willingness to participate in an energy community project was the ownership of project-related assets. Ownership can as well be linked to material participation. Material participation is “a device- or object-centred perspective, focusing on the roles of technologies and material objects in participation” (Ryghaug, Skjølsvold, and Heidenreich 2018, p289). Thus, it is not limited to materiality but creates multivalent types of collectives. Transparency and trust: Trust defnes the inter-relations and thus the willingness to collaborate, positively infuencing citizen participation (Declerck, Boone and Emonds, 2013; Misztal, 2013; Tyler and Degoey, 1995). Trust is essential when considering entrepreneurs for decentral energy supply systems (Wiersma and Devine-Wright, 2014) and novel BMs as they still need to establish themselves as trustworthy partners. Participation needs to be backed up with roles, requirements and responsibilities. Otherwise, accountability and thus transparency is not ensured (White, 2000).

The following part provides a classifcation of Germany’s energy community BM landscape.

4 Business model landscape and setting of roles 4.1 Review of offers and BM concepts In the following, we refer to the compiled Table D1.2, which provides an overview of the 26 BMs investigated. We introduce our categorization of

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digital energy community BMs and describe the BMs’ digital value. Energy community BMs that have a strong focus on digital value provision are described as digital energy community BMs. As community energy projects lack a digital value, they are not regarded as digital energy community BMs and are not analysed in detail (see Figure D1.4). However, they are essential to the energy community landscape. The landscape of digital energy community BMs develops rapidly. Seemingly, new start-ups or established companies launch new BMs or adapt existing ones every other month. Thus we may only offer preliminary insight into this evolving and highly dynamic market segment, not covering its entirety. The majority of digital energy community BMs and companies were founded in the late 2010s. Additionally, established energy utilities (EWE AG (dt. Aktiengesellschaft, eng. corporation or joint-stock company), EnBW AG and Stadtwerke) provide new services and offers to integrate prosumption by linking end consumers and prosumers in energy communities. However, the purpose of the digital energy community BMs and understanding the “energy community” itself differ widely between the different market players. Based on EuPD Research (2018) and our research, we may identify fve different types of energy community BMs as described in greater detail below. I Financial compensation model Traditional energy suppliers often provide fnancial compensation models. An example would be “MyEnergyCloud” from EWE or “ViShare” from Viessmann. The digital BM consists of a virtual dispersed group of prosumers who beneft from electricity savings when electricity is overproduced. The surplus of electricity is “stored” in a virtual storage (cloud) that functions as an account: Surplus electricity is measured; when the prosumers owned PV plant does not produce enough to satisfy the demand, the “stored” electricity is provided at lower prices or even for free. In total, this concept is a complete fnancial compensation-based model - no physical energy is shared. In this case, the electricity grid is used as the “cloud” (see Figure D1.4). One exception would be “Pionierkraftwerk.” Considering two adjacent housing units, the algorithm sends electricity to the neighbouring unit anytime there is overproduction from prosumer A and no production but demand from neighbouring prosumer B. Since all participants of the “Pionierkraftwerk” are still grid-connected, the physical supply to prosumer B cannot be fully traced. This BM counts as a fnancial compensation model, as households beneft from their neighbour’s overproduction and are accounted for on both parties’ electricity bills. II Grid services model A crucial aspect of “grid service models” is the provision of fexibility services such as balancing services. By aggregating prosumer DERs as

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Figure D1.4 Financial compensation model

a cVPP, the aggregated resources have the potential to stabilize the grid by (a) increasing or decreasing demand response or by (b) selling storage capacity from the cVPP as frequency reserve on the balancing market. Examples are the “Sonnen Community” or the “Schwarm Energie” from Lichtblick SE. Although revenues on the balancing market do not incentivize these BMs and regulatory hurdles for prequalifcation are high, community-based grid service BMs may likely gain in importance. A prerequisite for these concepts is physical storage. Aggregator and provider are usually the same entity in this model (Figure D1.5). III Marketplaces We divide marketplaces into two subgroups (a) marketplaces that are place independent and provide platform concepts as a core element and (b) Local Energy Markets (LEMs) that are place dependent and apply their demand and supply settlement logic within a defned perimeter. • Digital platform “Marketplaces” describe BMs providing a digital platform as a central value proposition. The marketplace brings producers, prosumers and consumers directly together. Customers receive full transparency on the origin of their electricity contract, and producers can sell their local electricity through the platform. We have found that all digital platform BMs are recent developments. However, they differ in their requirements, purpose and mission. While the provider aWATTar GmbH (dt. Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) does not emphasize any community aspect, they transport

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Figure D1.5 Grid services model

the market price signal directly to the end consumer with the intention of rewarding the consumer’s fexibility and creating an incentive to consume when prices are low and supply is high. The products “Enyway Power” and “Lumenaza Community” are available to everyone, while Lition explicitly provides their service to prosumers only. All of them are digital electricity providers, and the exchange between parties is not local but virtual (Figure D1.6). Another BM group that we have subsumed under the category of marketplaces are LEMs. In contrast to LEM, where a market logic is applied at the local level, and agents can trade and purchase electricity individually, digital platform concepts provide a virtual venue for exchange. The main goal for digital platform BMs is to increase transparency instead of developing parallel market mechanisms. • Local energy market In LEMs, interconnected agents (consumers, producers, prosumers) trade, share, sell or buy electricity in a specifc local perimeter with a defned market mechanism (Mengelkamp et al., 2018). LEMs allow prosumers to become active market players and trade local electricity production. LEMs can be managed decentrally with peer-to-peer trading or centrally through auctions managed by a central agent. Consumers are incentivized to participate in the market, distributing the achieved economic beneft to the local community. This “distributional justice” is achieved through locally produced and consumed electricity and can potentially reduce

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Figure D1.6 Marketplaces

electricity costs for the consumer (Mengelkamp et al., 2017, 2018). Consumers, prosumers and local producers are trading with each other; ownership of physical batteries for storage or PV plants for production is not required for all the participants. Only some members of the LEM are providing the electricity needed. An example of this specifc model is, e.g., “LAMP” from Energie Suedwest AG or “Tal.markt” from Wuppertaler Stadtwerke GmbH (Table D1.2). Although pilot projects of LEM exist in Germany, regulations and market rules are not yet fully established. IV Tenant electricity While tenant electricity is not a novel BM, the amendment of the EEG 2021 improved its attractiveness, especially concerning the funding scheme. The proposed value allows tenants to beneft from locally produced electricity, usually produced by rooftop PV plants on their or adjacent apartment buildings. The legal entity that owns and operates the PV plants is the contract partner for the tenants and provider of the tenant electricity (usually the landlord). The provider must cover all electricity demands reliably and purchase electricity from third parties if the demand exceeds the local supply. The model can be facilitated by subcontracting to a service provider. The tenants are not obliged to purchase the provided electricity but still have a free supplier choice. The plant operator benefts from directly selling electricity to the tenants and receiving federal funding, while service providers can sell their services to the plant operator. In recent years, service provider start-ups have recycled this BM concept by adding digital services. This evolution allows operators

234 Christine Dede and Monika Heyder of tenant electricity an easy rollout and provides the tenants with increased transparency. Examples with a strong market presence are the start-ups Polarstern GmbH and BUZZN GmbH in Munich, Einhundert Energie GmbH in Cologne, Prosumergy GmbH and Solarimo GmbH in Berlin. Numerous tenant electricity providers are Stadtwerke (local energy utilities) collaborating with the aforementioned start-ups. Target groups are owners of multi-story apartment buildings, including private persons, housing corporations or cooperatives (Figure D1.7). V White label As energy community concepts are also receiving increasing attention from established energy providers, a variety of white label products and services have been developed. “White label” describes products or services that are created by one service company and branded and sold by another. Target groups are companies that need help developing complex Software as a Service (SaaS) or IoT solutions to create their own energy community BM. White label providers that focus explicitly on energy communities are Beegy GmbH, GridX GmbH and Coneva GmbH. Other companies, such as Lumenaza GmbH, formerly focused on providing white label services, now offer energy community BMs. 4.2 The digital value of energy community BMs More than two-thirds of the 26 analysed BMs stress the beneft of increased transparency provided by front-end such as Apps, dashboards and digital platform concepts in their internet presence. They claim to allow community

Figure D1.7 Tenant electricity

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members better-informed decisions. The virtual marketplaces incentivize customers to support local energy producers and create a more personal setting and sense of belonging. An additional digital value created by virtual marketplaces is the increased fexibility in choosing their portfolio of local producers. Thereby active engagement and decision-making are fostered. Concepts that transfer the market price to the end-user, e.g., provided by “aWattar”, introduce a gamifcation component into the consumer-producer relationship. Gamifcation is also provided in LEMs where prosumers, producers and consumers locally trade energy via Apps (Mengelkamp et al., 2017, 2018). For these concepts, blockchain is crucial to create transparency and trust. With transparency and visibility, users become increasingly aware of their energy consumption and fows. Therefore, applications can also help optimize energy demand (1) by incentivizing voluntary energy-effcient behaviour (2) through algorithms that aggregate demand to provide fexibility to the system. At present, Sonnen GmbH and LichtBlick SE (Societas Europaea) are the sole aggregators in Germany, aggregating electricity demand and battery capacity on a household level to provide system services (Poplavskaya and De Vries, 2020). The central digital value of fnancial compensation BM is the aspect of “virtual storage” or “clouds”, which allows prosumers to “save” production surplus on a “virtual account” (see fnancial compensation model). Recently, the Consumer Advice Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia (dt. Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein Westfalen) called on several providers to withdraw their BM, accusing them of “misleading advertising claims” by using the national power grid as a “virtual storage facility” (Diermann, 2021). So far, similar BMs still exist. In the following, our research questions and the derived criteria for citizen participation are discussed against the concept of digital energy community BMs.

5 Discussion The frst part discusses what digital energy community BMs are and how they can be clustered. In the second part, we provide an overview of the landscape of digital energy community BMs in Germany and fnally discuss which opportunities digital energy community BMs provide for citizens. 5.1 What are digital energy community BMs? Although the EU defnes the citizen energy community and renewable energy community as mainly non-commercial legal entities (RED II; IMED; Reis et al., 2021), we note that all revised BMs pursue a commercial interest. However, many of them emphasize their motivation in enabling citizens to support local projects or become members of an energy community.

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Reis et al. underline that regardless of commercial interest, “the main aim of energy community projects must be to fulfl the energy needs of local communities, allowing them to reach some degree of energy autonomy by optimally managing their resources while delivering social and environmental benefts” (2021, p2). In distinction to “third party sponsored communities” where utilities fnance the BM, maintenance and operation of the facilities, they understand “energy community BM” as a bottom-up process created by engaged citizens who steer the energy transition. Part of this defnition is the fnancial participation of citizens: “[…] the whole BM must be created by for and with them [the members of the energy community]” (Reis et al., 2021, p5). This defnition applies to German citizen energy initiatives. However, in relation to emerging digital BMs that aim to connect consumers, prosumers and fexumers (virtually or physically), we rarely fnd evidence of similar bottom-up development. We must assume that this is a direct consequence of lacking knowledge, time, fnancial capacity and regulatory hurdles imposed on electricity sharing. The identifed category, “community developed and owned energy community” (based on Reis et al., 2021, Figure D1.8) comprises two BM types: (1) energy cooperatives and (2) marketplaces, which fall in both categories. LEM pilots are often created in collaboration with regional universities and municipalities and are therefore community developed. BMs are often made possible through third-party funding. For all other BM, third-party funding is required (Figure D1.8). Digital energy community BMs allow individuals to jointly realize energy system relevant activities such as energy consumption, production, prosumption, storage, sharing, trading, buying, selling and creating value not

Figure D1.8 Categorization of digital energy community BMs considered in the chapter and applied to the German market

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only through the supply of electricity but through the provision of digital appliances (apps, dashboards, platforms, etc.). The initiators encompass the private and public sectors. While they act upon fnancial (private) interest, further they might be motivated by social, environmental, and thus public interest. 5.2 What does the landscape of digital energy community BMs in Germany look like? Germany’s digital energy community BMs landscape is characterized by a strong market dynamic. Our analysis focused on third-party sponsored energy communities (Figure D1.8). Of the 26 BMs analysed, 14 represent small recently emerging companies, while 12 BMs were developed by established utilities. Many of the newly developed BMs focus on providing online marketplaces between prosumers/producers on the one hand and prosumers/consumers on the other. Although the potential of energy communities to offer fexibility services will be crucial in the future with higher shares of renewables, only two of the BMs studied currently serve as grid services models (Lichtblick SE and Sonnen GmbH). The main barriers are complex prequalifying capacities procedures and low market prices in the balancing energy market. 5.3 Do digital energy community BMs provide opportunities for citizen participation, and if yes, in which way? Our analysis showed that prosumers tend to form energy communities, while prosumption is not always a prerequisite for participation in the digital energy communities BMs. The digital energy BMs stem from an economic rationale. They seem to consider the citizen preliminary as a consumer, but at the same time allow a deliberate involvement and interaction with market actors. Some BMs overcome the passive consumer perspective by recognizing the citizen’s role in energy production, prosumption and fexible consumption or by allowing participation in the form of shareholding. As depicted in Figure D1.8, the digital value might help increase citizens’ involvement, but there seems to be no direct correlation. Citizens are encouraged to become prosumers and make a considered choice of provider which helps to increase awareness and knowledge recognized as the frst step towards higher participation. In the following, we will discuss the investigated BMs against the selected criteria for participation. •

Awareness-raising Almost all companies reviewed draw attention to their BMs and inform about their purpose. Especially, start-ups such as Enyway GmbH or Tibber GmbH have a particular communication strategy for

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Christine Dede and Monika Heyder young, environmentally conscious citizens. The wording on the website says “Electricity for rebels” (Tibber, 2021) or “Bye energy corporate, hello eco-electricity from the region” (Enyway, 2021), which indicates their target group is interested in the clean energy transition supporting the decentralized, location-oriented energy projects. While some energy community BMs focus more intensely on the locally defned community (e.g., all LEM BMs), others defne energy community BMs on a virtual space (fnancial compensation models and some grid services BMs). The latter breaks with the traditional understanding of placebased communities. Role of citizens The developed digital and novel BMs, especially the bundled offers, tapped into a market gap that enables willing and motivated citizens to engage more strongly in the low carbon energy transition. Bundled products offer a multitude of services with several technologies (PV, battery, smart meters, etc.) for customer groups. However, their accessibility is hindered by an inherent and increasingly complex energy system. We argue that new relationships need to be formed between energy communities and market players for a concrete implementation in light of the increasingly complex regulation and technical setup. The perspective of energy community BM providers regarding the role of individuals in the energy community differs strongly. We fnd a gradual increase in involvement from the fnancial compensation model, tenant electricity to the grid services model to active market agents as in the marketplaces (LEM) (listed from low to high activity) (Figure D1.8). Restriction Regarding the requirements to participate in energy communities, most of the described BMs require PV systems, batteries or both. Citizens have different possibilities to engage due to varying forms of economic inequalities and social stratifcation, leading to a restriction in the participation of these BMs. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu (2012), we argue that citizens have different possibilities to engage with the “energy world”. The various options to engage are dependent on diverging levels of endowment with social, cultural and economic capital that they have acquired in their biographies. To install and operate systems, prosumers need to be homeowners. In Germany, homeownership rates are one of the lowest in the European Union, with an ownership rate of 46.5% in 2018 (Destatis, 2020). The trend is particularly prevalent in the city’s population. Landlords not only decide on building modernization but also investment in DER, leading to digital BMs such as tenant electricity or marketplaces for electricity supply. Thus, the population “tenant” will not beneft from BMs requiring prosumption. Their alternative is tenant electricity. The “digital divide” adds another layer to the complex power structures, dividing those who have the know-how and can afford it from those who

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do not and cannot, leading to social exclusion (Van Dijk, 2006). Digitalization may cement and possibly reinforce the gap between active and passive citizens (Margolis and Resnick, 2002; Norris, 2001). Therefore, not changing or diminishing participatory inequalities but reinforcing them (Albrecht, 2006; Bimber, 2003; Di Gennaro and Dutton, 2006; Norris, 2003; Willis and Tranter, 2006). While the cited research stems from political participation, it is also relevant in digital BMs. How the European Consumer Organisation (fr. Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs, BEUC) (2019, p2) declaration “a transition that is fair for all consumers, without leaving any consumer behind” can be met, desires to be identifed in the future. Ownership and decision-making Most of the named BM providers are legally formed as a GmbH, meaning a shareholder company with limited options for fnancial ownership. Only one listed example, “Bürgerwerke eG” (dt. eingetragene Genossenschaft), takes the organizational form of a cooperative and with it operates under the principles of solidarity, sharing the beneft and costs between its members (see Table D1.2). Lowitzsch (2019) stresses the importance of the fnancial ownership of citizens for a successful energy transition. While in part of the participation literature, ownership of assets is seen as a step to deliberation and democratization of the energy system, the community’s ownership of project-related assets (e.g., Kalkbrenner and Roosen, 2016) is not necessary, e.g., tenant electricity. However, it is a prerequisite in BMs particularly designed for prosumers. Ryghaug Skjølsvold and Heidenreich recall that material participation widens the perspective of those “who are excluded and unable to participate” (2018, p290). This links to the above-discussed criterion restrictions. Transparency and trust From the consumer perspective, BEUC (2019) underlines critical points in the transparency of new digital offers linked to the before-mentioned digital divide. All investigated energy community BMs offer “digital value”-add, e.g., through mobile apps or platforms for online trading. However, many users are seemingly unaware of their rights and responsibilities (BEUC, 2019). Furthermore, many of the BM providers enable supplier transparency as a core value for a suitable customer choice (e.g., Enyway GmbH). However, BEUC (2019) indicates the possibility of non-transparency and thus limited accessibility, especially in bundled products. The bundled products cannot be easily compared with similar offers.

6 Conclusion and outlook Combined with increased data availability, technological progress and decreasing costs for computation power, new opportunities for innovative

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BMs arise. Of the 106 relevant BMs in the German context, we selected 26 BMs in terms of actuality and representativeness for the energy community BM concept. Our fndings suggest that 14 BMs represent emerging companies, while 12 BMs are products of established market players. Many of the novel BMs focus on providing online marketplaces. Surprisingly, only two of the studied BMs serve as grid services models, offering fexibility services such as balancing services. In the future, this service will become crucial with increasing shares of DERs. This fnding underlines that digital energy community BMs can be considered for the provision of DSM. The digital value of the BMs analysed is supported by software and virtual service products that visualize, analyse and forecast data and monitor, assess and even manage renewable assets. We mapped these digital energy community BMs against criteria concerning citizen participation. The criteria encompass awareness-raising, the role of citizens, restrictions, ownership and decision-making and transparency and trust. Based on EuPD Research (2018) and Reis et al. (2021), we identifed two main categories relevant to novel BMs for energy communities. First, “community developed and owned energy community” comprises energy cooperatives and virtual marketplaces. Second, “third-party sponsored communities” comprises fnancial compensation models, grid service models, marketplaces, tenant electricity and white labels. Digital energy communities can only contribute to citizen participation to a limited extent, as citizen engagement is not fundamentally part of their value proposition at this stage. Although digital BMs may increase transparency and may entice participation in the energy transition, the core competencies remain with third-party providers. Regarding decision-making and ownership, only one of the reviewed BMs includes a cooperative approach, bringing value to its members. More policy programmes may be needed to increase citizen engagement in the energy transition, such as supporting schemes for community-owned LEMs or grid service models. Furthermore, BM innovation is required to increase citizen involvement in proft sharing to achieve social, economic and environmental benefts. Moreover, clear and concise national regulations are needed to allow energy communities and energy sharing to step out of the legal grey zone. Our research found that the described vision of energy communities and the implementation of energy community BMs regarding our selected criteria diverge on many levels. To test the theoretical approach developed, supportive qualitative interviews with provider companies and their customers would increase the understanding of (a) how providers intend to support citizen participation and community creation and (b) how citizens may perceive their role in the energy system due to increased market possibilities, awareness and transparency. Furthermore, digitalization may infuence established energy communities and further trigger the evolution of novel BMs. Future research might target this segment specifcally.

Finan- EWE AG cial compensation model Finan- Pionierkraft cial GmbH compensation model

Finan- Viessmann cial GmbH compensation model

2

4

3

Finan- EnBW AG cial (SENEC compen- GmbH, sation Lumenaza) Solar Plus

Provider

1

Number Type

ViShare

Pionierkraftwerk

MyEnergy Cloud

1917

2019

1943

SENEC. EnBW Cloud 1997, Family and Senec Friends 2009 (before Solar +)

Provide yes clean electricity, virtual community no

yes

no

yes

Virtual storage (cloud), App

Virtual storage (cloud), App

Smart system for energy sharing, Dashboard visualising share energy and CO2 emission reductions PV plant, Visualisfuel cell, ation of heat pump, savings, smart commumeter nity term unclear

PV or CHP, smart meter

PV and battery, smart meter

PV and battery, smart meter

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Provide yes clean, local electricity with coupled PV and battery systems Provide yes clean electricity, virtual community Local no electricity sharing via digital solutions

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Table D1.2 Analysed energy community BMs as of 15th October 2021 Proft Sharing

ProProsume sumers, house owners

Private

ProProsume, Private sumers, sharing house (physically) owners

Private

Produce, Private consume, prosume, store, share (virtually)

Activities

ProProsume, sumers, share house (virtually) owners

Prosumers, house owners

Target group

Unclear

(Continued)

https://vishare. viessmann.de/

Community https://www. of interest ewe-solar. de/zuhause/ produkte/ myenergycloud Community https://pionierof place and kraft.de/produkt/ interest

Community https://senec. of interest com/de/produkte/ senec-cloud

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

Market aWATTar x place Deutschland GmbH

Market Bürgerwerke x place eG

7

8

2013

2015

Sonnen 2010 Community

Grid Sonnen services GmbH model

6

1998

no

no

yes

x

Smart meter

PV and battery, smart meter

Battery, optional PV, smart meter

Target group

Prosumers, house owners

Platform, transparency of supply

Proft Sharing

Prosum- Consume, ers, pro- produce ducers, consumers

https://buergerwerke.de/ strom-beziehen/ die-buergerwerke/ ueber-uns/

Community https://www. of interest awattar.de/

Community https://sonnen. of interest de/sonnencommunity/

Community https://www.lichtof interest blick.de/zuhause/ solar/

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

Proft goes Community back to of interest members of the cooperative

Private

ProsumpPrivate tion, consumption electricity sharing (virtually), grid services provision possible

ProsumpPrivate tion, consumption electricity sharing (virtually), grid services provision possible

Activities

Real life Consum- Consume, market ers buy price transparency, App, visualisation

Platform concept connecting small DERs, App, visualisation

“Schwarm- Probox” smart sumers, system house connect- owners ing small DERs, App, visualisation

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Connect regional prosumers, provide grid services, transparent, clean energy supply Connect yes regional prosumers, provide grid services, transparent, clean energy supply Digital no energy provider, market coupled electricity sales Market no place for regional cooperatives and consumers

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Grid Lichtblick SE Schwarmservices batterie model

Provider

5

Number Type

Market Enyway place GmbH

Market Eprimo place GmbH

Market Lition Ener- x place gie GmbH

11

12

13

2017

2018

Community 2007 Strom

Enyway power

Community 2002 Strom

Market Enviam place GmbH

10

1861

Market no place for regional producers and consumers

Market no place for regional producers and consumers Provide no local energy

no

no

no

no

no

x

Unclear

Unclear

x

x

Target group

Activities

Platform concept, transparency of supply

Unclear

Platform bringing producers and consumers together, transparency, customer’s decision of supply Platform concept, transparency of supply Produce, consume, prosume, buy, sell

ProProduce, sumer, consume, producer, prosume, house buy, sell owners Prosum- Consume, ers, pro- produce, ducers, sell, buy consumers

Prosum- Consume, ers, pro- produce, ducers, sell, buy consumers

Prosumers, house owners

Blockchain Consum- Consume, based ers, pro- produce, platform ducers, buy, sell concept, prosumApp, trans- ers parency of supply

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Blockchain no based local energy market to connect local producers and consumers (pilot project) Connect no regional prosumers, producers and consumers

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Market Energie Sued- LAMP place west AG

Provider

9

Number Type

Private

Private

Private

Private

Private

Proft Sharing

(Continued)

Community https://www. of interest eprimo.de/ oekostrom/gruenstromcommunity-tarif Community https://lition.de/ of interest

Community https://www. of interest enyway.com/ de/power/ unser-prinzip

Community https://www. of interest enviam.de/privatkunden/StromfuerdenHaushalt/ community-strom

Community https://enerof place gie-suedwest.de/ unternehmen/ projekte-dienstleistungen/ lamp/

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

Market TWL Lutricity place Technische Werke Ludwigshafen am Rhein AG

Market WSW Tal.markt place Wuppertaler Stadtwerke GmbH

16

17

x

Market Tibber place GmbH

15

1868

x

2016

Lumenaza 2013 Community no

Blackchain no based local energy market to connect local producers and consumers (pilot project) Blackchain no based local energy market to connect local producers and consumers (pilot project) no

no

no

no

x

x

x

x

Target group

Activities

Blockchain Consum- Consume, based ers, pro- produce, platform ducers, buy, sell concept, prosumApp, trans- ers parency of supply

Platform Prosum- Consumer, concept, ers, pro- producer, transpar- ducers, prosumer, ency of consum- sell, buy supply ers App, trans- Prosum- Consumer, parency ers, pro- producer, of supply, ducers, prosumer, connected consum- sell, buy functions ers such as smart charging Blockchain Consum- Consume, based ers, pro- produce, platform ducers, buy, sell concept, prosumApp, trans- ers parency of supply

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Market no place for regional producers and consumers

Market place and digital supplier

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Market Lumenaza place GmbH

Provider

14

Number Type

Private

Private

Private

Private

Proft Sharing

Community https://www. of place wsw-online.de/ wsw-energie-wasser/privatkunden/ produkte/strom/ talmarkt/#c13270

Community https://www. of place elektroniknet. de/power/dieblockchain-fuerden-energiemarkt.150173. html

Community https://tibof interest ber.com/de/ tibber-story

Community https://lumenaza. of interest community/de/ home/

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

Tenant Polarstern electric- GmbH, ity Emondo

Tenant Solarimo electric- GmbH ity

Tenant Stadtwerke electric- Karlsruhe ity GmbH

20

21

22

2017

2017

Community 1997 Strom

x

Wirklich 2011 Eigenstrom Community

x

Tenant Einhundert electric- Energie ity GmbH

19

2010

Tenant electricity, green electricity, digital services Tenant unclear unclear electricity, green electricity, digital services Local unclear unclear supply of electricity x

PV, optional battery, smart meter

PV, optional battery, smart meter

Tenant unclear unclear PV, electricoptional ity, green battery, electricity, smart digital meter services

unclear PV, optional battery, smart meter Landlords, housing companies

Target group

App, visualisation, transparency

App, visualisation, transparency

Proft Sharing

LandConsume lords, housing companies

LandConsume lords, housing companies

Private

Private

Private

Private

Consume, Private produce, share (virtually), buy, sell

Activities

Tenant LandConsume electricity lords, cloud, housing Smart compametering nies and communication with DSO, visualisation App, vis- LandConsume ualisation, lords, transpar- housing ency companies

App, visualisation, transparency

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Tenant no electricity, green electricity, digital services

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Tenant BUZZ GmbH Energieelectricgruppe ity

Provider

18

Number Type

(Continued)

Community https://www. of place stadtwerke-karlsruhe.de/de/pk/ dienstleistungen/ community-strom.php

Community https://solarimo. of place de/

Community https://www. of place polarstern-energie.de/

Community https://einhunof place dert.de/

Community https://www. of place buzzn.net/

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

White label

White label

White label

24

25

26

2014

2015

2017

Coneva 2018 community

grid X GmbH Xenon

Coneva GmbH

Beegy GmbH beegy connect

Prosumergy x GmbH

Tenant electricity, white label

23

Software not not x solutions applica- applicafor complex ble ble local energy systems, white label solutions Software not not x solutions applica- applicafor complex ble ble local energy systems, white label solutions Software not not x solutions applica- applicafor complex ble ble local energy systems, white label solutions SaaS, platform, dashboard and app services

Private

SaaS, platform and app services

App, visualisation, transparency

Virtual Physical Required Digital storage storage components value “cloud” “swarm”

Tenant unclear unclear PV, electricoptional ity, green battery, electricity, smart digital meter services

Service name Year of Purpose foundation

Provider

Number Type

Activities

Comx munity energy providers

Comx munity service provider

Comx munity energy providers

LandConsume lords, housing companies

Target group

Private

Private

Private

Private

Proft Sharing

Community https://de.gridx. service ai/ provider

Community https://coneva. service com/en/ provider

Community https://www. service beegy.com/beegy/ provider beegy-vision/

Community https://prosumof place ergy.de/

Community Link (as of 15. type October 2021)

Digital business models enabling citizen participation

247

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D.2 Digital technologies for consumer-centred energy markets Opportunities and risks of an energy internet Hugo Schönbeck, Anna Gorbatcheva and Alexandra Schneiders 1 Introduction This chapter may look and feel different, being based on research and thorough inquiry through interviews with stakeholders, in which their opinions and original insights emerge. Several statements in this chapter are distilled from the work one of the authors has done in writing the digitalisation agenda for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, which is not yet published, a prequel by the co-author is (Aazami and Post, 2015). In that process, many kitchen table discussions and subsequent online interviews were conducted with stakeholders from the world of energy supply, grid management, non-governmental organizations and policy. When the Internet was still young and the energy grid old, Jeremy Rifkin, an economic and social theorist, foresaw a new convergence of energy and communication, just as had previously happened in the age of coal and the age of oil, when the energy revolution profoundly affected our ways of travel and communication. In his lectures at the Wharton School’s Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania, he declared that there would be a fusion of the Internet and the many decentralised energy sources – an Energy Internet (Rifkin, 2002). In 2011 these thoughts culminated in his publication ‘The Third Industrial Revolution’ (Rifkin, 2011). These thoughts have influenced various projects since then, as he was invited by many national and local governments to speak around the world. Some of the first advocates of the Internet of Energy could be found in the Dutch thinktank ‘Club van Wageningen’,1 co-founded by Arash Aazami. The Internet already supports many processes in the energy industry. The increasing complexity of the operation of the energy industry, technical but also legal and financial, requires integration. Moreover, recent opportunities, ever decreasing costs and continuous innovation make it possible for passive consumers to become a grid of active consumers or prosumers, who both consume and produce energy (Parag and Sovacool, 2016). However, the intermittent nature of most distributed energy resource (DER) will make it increasingly difficult to centrally control the energy system as we do today. Tomorrow’s energy system will not fit into yesterday’s thinking. Therefore, DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-17

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 253 it increasingly makes sense to coordinate generated and consumed energy locally and in real-time (Sousa et al., 2019). There’s your opportunity and the reason why, dear reader, you could be doing something within fve years that does not even have a name yet. All of the above-described developments fall within the categories of the 5D’s, the separate transformation processes we need to see for the energy industry to meet its set carbon reduction targets. These processes include the democratisation, decarbonisation, deregulation, decentralisation and digitalisation policy makers need to set their focus on (Dash, 2016). In this chapter, we will touch upon these fve different streams and highlight the key research questions of the future. We provide some background information on the concept of electricity and the need to move towards more decentralised markets. And then we introduce the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading while also looking at the role of policy making and regulation in these decentralised energy markets. We provide an overview of the key challenges of decentralised energy markets and how they can be designed with a strong consumer focus. Finally, we assess the role of blockchain, which in the past proved to be a prominent technology to meet some of the challenges of decentralised energy markets. In the fnal section, the conclusion, we highlight some of the key research opportunities in the future.

2 Background 2.1 The judge looked and it was good2 One day, long ago, a judge decided that electricity is a good because otherwise you could not steal it, which was indeed possible (Irfan, 2015). Physically, electricity is not a good. Visually, electricity can be described as a form of tension, which we call ‘voltage’, in a grid that eventually gives your equipment a kick to come to life, converting the kick into movement, light, sound or heat. A grid that is carefully kept at the same frequency because otherwise the kick would be either too little so your equipment stays asleep, or too much so your equipment overheats, melts or explodes. Since electricity is not a good, the premise that it belongs in a market can be questioned, since markets, by defnition, focus exclusively on goods in measurable units. There are indeed many actors who take care of feeding the voltage and transporting it through all the branches of the grid, all the way to your equipment. Therefore the market provides those services and, in particular, takes the risks, such as price volatility to meet balancing requirements (Ciarreta, Pizarro-Irizar and Zarraga, 2020). Theoretically, it would be possible for each energy consumer to pay the equivalent of their consumption directly to the network company for maintenance and electrical balancing, and to the power producer for power generation, assuming that the price is not determined by market volatility. However, this is not

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the case. This observation is related to the philosophical idea that the electric layer could exist without the fnancial one if theoretically, a government decides that its citizens will be provided with energy and consumers can get energy for free or at a fxed price. When a market is established, other dynamics occur, such as supply and demand that determine prices per given unit of time. Nevertheless, it is ultimately a construct and a choice. Just as people do not usually take the risks associated with sailing out into a raging sea to catch fsh, energy consumers do not want the risks of sudden exorbitant prices due to spikes in demand, nor the risks of negative prices that producers face when they occur due to overproduction. The real market thus acts as an intermediary between user and provider, mitigating those risks. If we lived in a country where everything was fnanced by the government and only the production facilities and the power grid had to be built and maintained, prices could be set by public consensus or taxation. However, this is not the case, and so we have created a market, which has created risks, which needs a market to mitigate those risks. Physically and factually, the role of the energy market revolves around services to keep the voltage at the right level by balancing generation and demand. As generation becomes more intermittent and decentralised with the increasing penetration of DERs, the nature of those services is changing (IRENA, 2019). Some services will become obsolete; others will become more important and new services will appear that we haven’t even heard of yet (van Leeuwen et al., 2020). The more markets emerge to support the operation of the energy system, such as day-ahead, intraday or real-time markets, the more opportunities to attack the system will arise. In stock markets and cryptocurrency markets, we see that the best software and the fastest Internet connection always results in a competitive advantage (Michael Lewis, 2014). We do not want the same development to occur with something of such public interest as energy. Consumers and prosumers must be protected from this and have a level playing feld. For example, bots trying to make a proft in the frequency market are not the right type of ‘voltage’ that the grid needs. Protecting consumers and the system could also become a new business opportunity for which consumers will pay. 2.2 Moving away from a centralised energy system Our current energy system is designed for fossil energy. Steering takes place centrally based on planning and control. Fossil energy is highly predictable and controllable. This energy system has worked wonderfully for more than a century: energy is available at the push of a button, anytime and for anyone (Sweijs et al., 2014). Unlike fossil energy, renewable energy is decentralised, unpredictable and uncontrollable (IRENA, 2019). We all know how diffcult it is to predict the weather, and a wind turbine cannot be operated halfway like a gas plant can. The emergence of decentralised renewable energy pipelines, such as transactive energy (see Box D2.1), can help control energy fows and congestion in our centralised energy system.

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Box D2.1 Transactive energy Transactive energy is a concept of energy management where economic and market-based values are the main drivers for individual players to actively trade energy. By defnition, this is not a hierarchical model, but a holarchical system3 where distributed energy nodes interact individually to balance supply and demand and regulate fexibility (Topsector Energie, 2020). It is a holarchical model because it combines individual economic drivers with management triggers. It encourages demand side management (DSM) at the household level, allowing individual users to contribute to the balance of the energy system as a whole (CHEN and LIU, 2017; GWAC, 2018). Fossil energy is a major contributor to climate change, international confict and unequal distribution of wealth. This is because fossil energy is scarce and thus can be appropriated: something that everyone needs, but which is in the hands of a few, automatically leads to confict (Wall, 2014) (see Box D2.2). Sustainable decentralised energy is abundant, has no owner and is available to all. Yet these resources, especially when used on a small scale by many, must be managed. One solution to this challenge is the establishment of P2P energy trading networks. P2P energy trading usually refers to a group of local energy consumers who can buy and sell energy among themselves without the intervention of an intermediary such as a retailer (Zhang et al., 2018). P2P markets may be the frst examples of the ‘energy internet’ introduced above.

3 Energy communities are more than just selling energy: peer-to-peer energy trading The future of local energy markets may be P2P. We are still used to distinguishing between suppliers and consumers of energy, but the line between the two is increasingly blurred. More and more people are choosing to be more than just consumers. We produce energy locally from renewable sources, we store energy in batteries and in electric cars, and we will increasingly share energy with each other (IEA, 2021). Traditional energy systems are centrally controlled. Energy companies and grid operators determine when what power should be where, and at what price. We are used to energy coming from a producer with exclusive access to scarce resources. All activities, such as production, transmission, conversion, balancing and storage, were entrusted to central parties. But in P2P energy networks, supply and demand are continually matched locally (Sia Partners, 2018). Just as knowledge on the Internet shifted from Encyclopaedia Britannica to Wikipedia, the activities in our energy system are shifting from central parties to local participants. ‘Power to the people’, literally and fguratively. Together, the

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Box D2.2 Commons Having a ‘commons’ in a community; land where anyone can feed their livestock or grow food has a long history. This concept came back in new forms because of the Internet (Wall, 2014). People realized that there could be a common digital space where you could read, enjoy and download content created by sometimes well-known, but often totally unknown creators from all over the world. In that atmosphere, the concept of sharing fles, music, videos and other content also took off. Suddenly you could download music albums from ‘seeders’ in different locations, without even knowing which part of a fle came from where. Apart from some risks of virus-infected fles, this was no big deal. The entertainment industry had no immediate answer, aside from copy protection for CDs and fles, but lost the battle. Only the security and convenience of offcial digital entertainment providers won back some of the customers for paying for content. People soon realised that the P2P concept could also be applied to different forms of services and content. The sale of used goods and increasingly of new goods through online auctions such as eBay was soon followed by the sharing of private holiday accommodation through Airbnb and private taxi services through, for example, Uber. The historic commons returned in new forms. P2P systems and other services appeared with their own regulated self-check to trust your peers. It was only a matter of time before both movements, self-generation of energy and P2P trading, would be combined and people wanted to sell energy directly to other consumers instead of being constrained by compensation schemes that do not even exist in many countries. participants in a P2P energy network take care of the entire system. Participants supply energy to each other, store energy and convert energy from one form into another. Together, participants keep the system in balance. Regulations must follow to enable this new movement, while still maintaining a stable grid. They must move away from the silo thinking that defned the traditional top-down model, designed to ensure a secure, competitive and sustainable energy supply, but avoid the conficting interests; the ‘energy policy trilemma’ (Oliver and Sovacool, 2017). The existing energy system operates at several layers amongst others the physical infrastructure of the power grid, the regulatory layer to coordinate operation and management and the fnancial layer to secure investment (see Box D2.3). For P2P markets to operate effciently and effectively it is key to ensure that these layers are vertically and horizontally integrated. Renewable energy sources are intermittent, so demand-side management is needed: new forms of understanding to make the necessary and right investment and trade decisions. This means that all layers must be developed

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Box D2.3 The effect of disentanglement layers When we look at the reality of the energy system, and in particular the operation of electricity markets, we can distinguish fve layers. These are: the power system layer, the software and hardware layer, the markets and transactions layer, the social and economic value layer and the policy and regulatory layer (GO-P2P, 2019). The interaction of all fve layers is crucial for the successful implementation of a decentralised energy market; the basis of the electricity grid is the power system layer, which describes the fow of energy in the system. To connect the power system layer to the market and transaction layer, we need hardware and software that monitors the energy system to provide data and track its operation. The fourth layer, social and economic value, defnes the values of the market that must be replicated in policy and regulation. In existing pilot projects, however, we often fnd these layers not aligned. The challenge of aligning these layers becomes apparent in a realistic scenario. Grid management is distinguished into voltage levels as transmission system operators and distribution system operators (DSOs) and is also paid for by governments and by consumers, albeit indirectly. DSOs do not have a direct fnancial or retail relationship with consumers in the Netherlands. However, they do have a service relationship in the electricity layer; if consumers experience technical problems or face voltage or blackouts, the DSO is responsible. In the Netherlands, retailers or energy suppliers operate in a liberalized market. Grid management is in the hands of the government. This does not make things easier. The DSO may not fnancially reward consumers for their contribution to balancing the grid by not consuming energy at the ‘wrong’ time or charging the car at the ‘right’ time, or allow the DSO to manage the demand side with respect to heating and cooling. In countries where supply and grid are still bundled and managed by the government or where both are fully liberalized, such rewards are much easier to organize. If there is to be a local energy market, there must be a way to reward contributions to balance and punish imbalance. and optimised together. Essential to the functioning of this system is the exchange of information in near real-time using Internet applications (Yang et al., 2017). Further, P2P networks are often organised into local cells, such as a neighbourhood or a business park. These local cells are self-balancing and interconnected (Sousa et al., 2019). For example, a battery will discharge when there is a cloud in front of the sun. Then the battery is balanced with neighbouring cells: the shortage of one is solved with the surplus of another. This creates a robust and scalable system that is much cheaper to build because it requires less copper wire and should be much easier to manage

258 Hugo Schönbeck et al. and balance (Afzalan and Jazizadeh, 2021; Liander, 2020). Participants in the network intelligently harness the local potential of energy generation, use, storage, conversion and transmission. They are self-balancing and can resolve congestion before it occurs (Mengelkamp et al., 2018). This describes an ideal operation and management of P2P energy trading networks. However, as of yet, we have no functioning regulation to allow such system to operate. Nevertheless, countries have started to pilot these local energy trading markets to approve or disprove assumptions and test P2P markets under near-real operating conditions (see Boxes D2.4 and D2.5).

Box D2.4 Transactive energy in Colombia In collaboration with multiple stakeholders, Universidad EIA in Colombia launched a pilot project in Medellin where neighbourhoods with different income levels can trade energy amongst themselves. Thirteen participants are allowed to trade energy with neighbours or other market participants based on different energy attributes, such as green energy or subsidized energy. The main goal of the project is to allow low-income users, who traditionally live in smaller houses with lots of roof space, to trade energy with high-income users who live in high-rise buildings where there is little roof space available, thus creating a win-win situation by reducing the energy bills of high-income users and providing low-income neighbourhoods with an additional source of income (Universidad EIA, 2020).

Box D2.5 Decentralised energy trading in India Dr Abhigyan Singh of Delft University has done important work looking from a design, ethnographic and sociological perspective at the different ways peers can be rewarded for the energy they sell or share within a community. His reasoning was that the existing energy literature on such returns is mainly limited to monetary returns and lacks critical discussion of the different types of monetary and non-monetary returns that are possible and the variation in people’s preferences for them. He worked for 11 months in rural India in practical pilots where different forms of returns were applied; in-cash, in-kind and intangible. He proposed a ‘returns-continuum model’ and shows how people’s preference for a particular form of return varies with the nature of their social relationships with each other and suggests that confguring a return is not merely an economic act but a complex socio-cultural process (Singh et al., 2018).

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 259 3.1 The role of regulation and policy making How do we integrate ‘prosumers’ into a traditional electricity market? They are usually only covered by regulated compensation schemes. European Union (EU) policymakers are lending a hand by recognising the important role of consumers and prosumers as well as energy aggregators in the transition that has become necessary to move away from fossil fuels and one-way markets (CEER, 2021). We see phrases such as ‘putting the consumer at the centre’ and ‘putting consumers at the heart of the energy market’ to avoid rising costs of backup generation and allow consumers to beneft from participating in the market. The EU Commission thus sees consumer empowerment as an essential part of the energy transition. This also requires energy law, as a discipline, to move away from traditional silo thinking where actors and their rights and responsibilities were defned along a conventional supply chain, as described above (see Box D2.6). This framework was developed based on policy objectives to ensure a secure, competitive and sustainable energy supply. It is clear that these objectives can confict, and this is sometimes referred to as the ‘energy policy trilemma’ (Oliver, Sovacool 2016). 3.2 Challenges of decentralised energy markets In our current energy system, incidents can cause an uncontrolled chain reaction. For example, a failure at one location can lead to a power outage over a large area. These types of incidents have been rare so far, but they will increase due to increasing congestion. In an Internet of Energy, an incident does not escalate, but extinguishes: if one cell is unable to fnd an equilibrium, it disconnects and other cells continue to function without problems. Because imbalance is resolved where it occurs, renewable energy fows without congestion. And because cells are interconnected, a web of autonomous cells grows. This makes autonomous energy systems highly scalable, while keeping the cost of imbalance and the construction of the physical grid low (Nasimifar, Vahidinasab and Ghazizadeh, 2019). P2P energy networks are made up of local, self-balancing cells such as homes, neighbourhoods or cities. The essence of local P2P energy networks is self-determination and self-management at the local level. Supported by digital technology, participants take an active role. This gives value to all local participants and intelligently opens up locally available opportunities that currently remain untapped. In a P2P energy network, you are not connected because you are dependent, but because you are valuable. 3.3 How can markets be designed to be consumer-centric? Historically, the production of energy was centralised and thus fully controllable. This gave consumers the reliability and affordability they needed. A central market mechanism ensured that supply and demand were matched,

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Box D2.6 EU regulations and sandboxes Pilot projects in several countries are testing ways to exchange P2P energy, sometimes using blockchain, other times using traditional forms of communication technology and data processing. In the Netherlands, one of the most ambitious regulations that gave cooperatives and communities an exemption from the Electricity Act was called the ‘Besluit experimenten decentrale duurzame elektriciteitsopwekking’ (Eng.: Decree on experiments with decentralised sustainable electricity generation) (Lysias Advies, 2021). This scheme allowed a ten-year exemption if the following criteria were met: the exempt party could combine generation and supply to members and consumers, but grid management remained in the hands of the distribution grid operator, or a community of up to 500 participants could even contribute to grid management with only one connection to the distribution grid operator. This scheme has inspired other countries to conduct similar pilots, and also the new European directive. Applications were allowed until 2018, but a new energy law is in the works that proposes an exemption for communities and prosumers to supply energy to others to the extent of the portion of electricity they exported (Rijksoverheid Nederland, 2021). An important milestone in the development of a robust regulatory framework to describe the roles and responsibilities of participants in P2P markets was the defnition of some of the key concepts. The European Commission’s updated Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) (Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU 2018) defnes for the frst time some of the key concepts that will guide the transition to more consumer-centric energy market platforms. P2P energy trading is defned as: The sale of renewable energy between market participants by means of a contract with pre-determined conditions governing the automated execution and settlement of the transaction, either directly between market participants or indirectly through a certifed third-party market participant, such as an aggregator. The right to conduct peer-to-peer trading shall be without prejudice to the rights and obligations of the parties involved as fnal customers, producers, suppliers or aggregators. (Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU 2018) RED II further defnes concepts such as the Renewable Energy Community and Citizen Energy Community, which describe the rights and roles of communities and its participants and will be key to enable the uptake of local energy markets in the future.

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 261 and this determined pricing. Consumers had little infuence over this. It was a hierarchical system, and place and time of energy demand were highly predictable long in advance. Current developments, and in particular the urgent need for more renewable energy, are moving us toward a new type of system, for the foreseeable future a hybrid of centralised and decentralised. Renewable energy from sun and wind is by defnition not controllable, other than curtailing energy when grid overload demands it. This requires storage and conversion to other carriers, such as hydrogen or chemical storage. The changing nature of the system from top-down to more horizontal and decentralised system is a consequence of and leads to determination by a large number of players. The nature of markets drives players to act from their own interests, unless they act as part of a larger whole, a cooperative, for example. A very important way to avoid this is good feedback about the local and even the whole system and its needs. This includes players in new roles and new markets where pricing is erratic; peaking, capacity and fexibility all have their own markets and trading foors. Thankfully there is now European legislation giving citizens, communities and aggregators more rights over their own energy supply and the ability to act in the energy market (Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU 2018), which will increase the infuence of users, making energy supply and demand less predictable and stable. Energy transition, particularly one driven by the need for rapid change and consumers becoming increasingly autonomous, is a double-edged sword. Prosumers, by defnition, generate renewable energy and can quickly switch to doing so, especially when supported by feed-in tariffs and other support schemes. Originally, these support schemes were aimed at increasing generation, but now they need to be more focused on creating balance in the system beyond individual interests. Congestion cannot be solved by switching off the systems that were subsidized a few years earlier. It’s also not very feasible to increase already very costly investments in infrastructure. The problems affect grid operators, governments, investors, energy suppliers, households and businesses equally, but not necessarily to the same extent or at the same time. The solution also lies in their hands, but it must be shared equally, and even simultaneously. Thus, on the one hand, the natural movement toward greater autonomy is desirable; on the other hand, uncontrolled autonomy is undesirable. Frameworks such as the organization and fnancing of the system in its own sphere, and steering methods such as legal or economic incentives, are needed for autonomy within the energy system. For optimal results, frameworks and steering methods may differ by aggregation level of autonomous units. For example, different frameworks will apply to a home than to a business, neighbourhood or region. As a result, a broad view of the total, ‘holarchy’ and the associated semi-autonomous energy systems emerge. Classifcation of a national energy system according to holarchical principles provides opportunities for greater autonomy, which will not be entirely uncontrolled, and thus supports the energy transition. As mentioned, we are likely to see a hybrid of systems in

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the near future, but it is clear that the value of balance will become increasingly important and will be rewarded. It is even less clear which system will be the ideal one to optimise the whole energy system while at the same time providing the freedom demanded by stakeholders. However, it is clear that digitalisation is the key to these developments. The challenge is to develop a new framework that allows for more autonomy. Digitalisation is an important tool, but not an end in itself. The energy system has allowed digitalisation to fourish, and now digitalisation will help transform the energy system. It is important to look at phenomena and developments from different perspectives. It is important to look beyond market thinking and beyond a purely energy perspective to developments that we see and that we would like to see. It is a market if it is purely an administrative process of fnding balance by offsetting shortages in one place with surpluses in another at a market price. When we look at the effects on energy supply that a P2P organization has, based on cooperation, it is something else. Something that has not yet been widely studied or fully developed. But because we are in a period of transition, we are simultaneously seeing, sometimes in conjunction with - and sometimes in opposition to - the actions of citizen cooperatives, how market-based approaches to the relationship between producers and consumers are shaping new business models, such as ‘Economy Transformers’4 in the Netherlands; a think tank on Peer Governance takes the broader perspective outlined above and they discern a movement from external governance to self-governance and at the same time an increasing global awareness, the combination of which results in less state intervention and less market mechanism toward energy systems that are more community owned (Sołtysik, Kozakiewicz and Jasiński, 2021). But as we have seen above, ownership and production are only half of the equation and central governance and market mechanisms can play a new role in observing and safeguarding the interests of the whole system. In the Netherlands, a think tank on Peer Governance takes the broader perspective outlined above and they discern a movement from external governance to self-governance and at the same time an increasing global awareness, the combination of which results in less state intervention and less market mechanism toward energy systems that are more community owned (Sołtysik, Kozakiewicz and Jasiński, 2021). But as we have seen above, ownership and production are only half of the equation and central governance and market mechanisms can play a new role in observing and safeguarding the interests of the whole system. 3.4 Blockchain and energy, diffcult combination or ideal marriage? As we have seen above, the challenges of the energy transition require new thinking, organizing and solutions. A system with many actors and even more data to organize could potentially beneft from new technologies such as blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. Blockchain is a

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 263 type of shared database that differs from a typical database in the way it stores information; blockchains store data in blocks that are then linked together via cryptography. A blockchain as a decentralised system without intermediaries sounds like an ideal ft for a decentralised energy scenario (Hrga, Capuder and Zarko, 2020). Many in-depth papers have been written on this technology and the authors have frst-hand experience with algorithms, pilots and developments in the feld of blockchain and energy (see Box D2.7). Commodity trading and insurance were seen as industries that could more easily take advantage of the benefts that blockchain offers (Kafol, Bregar and Trilar, 2018). Looking at all the pilots and developments taking place to identify potential and relevance, it is important to look at them from the perspective of both the existing and desired energy system and consider their technical aspects and limitations. Those limitations may have to do with speed, transaction throughput, scalability, privacy, impossibility of implementing the right to be forgotten, the need for freedom to easily change suppliers and other aspects that may arise when applying a new technology, a new system even, to an existing industry (Hrga, Capuder and Zarko, 2020). What drives the desire? We need to distinguish between projects that use blockchain. There are some where decentralised and unregulated blockchains seem to be used because of the sheer freedom from regulation. There are also many that are in fact a new form of investment and crowdfunding; Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs where the underlying goal is to increase the value of the currency by creating successful projects on top of the system (Hornuf, Kück and Schwienbacher, 2021). More interesting and relevant are the projects that seek and explore new solutions to real world problems. As we have seen, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of household consumers generating, storing and selling electricity, thanks to a decrease in the cost of renewable energy technologies, which has been further accommodated by the availability of smart meters and new forms of storage (Küfeoğlu et al., 2019). The evolution to a low-carbon decentralised system in which prosumers inject intermittent energy into the grid is a challenge to manage. It is here that P2P energy trading using distributed ledgers can facilitate the balancing of supply and demand at the local level (Lucas et al., 2021). The complexity can be resolved through the use of AI and smart contracts that are automatically executed when contract conditions are met. As mentioned above, we need to distinguish between public and permissioned blockchains. The latter is limited to approved participants by a central party that also sets the governance rules. In a critical national infrastructure such as energy, this may be considered more feasible than the former (Schneiders and Shipworth, 2018). A regulatory framework around this should combine the three layers we mentioned above, energy, fnancial and data; a unique level of complexity but also the opportunity to optimize the energy transition in all layers while we are at it.

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Box D2.7 B-DER project in the Netherlands In 2017–2019, one of the authors was a partner in the Dutch B-DER project (van Leeuwen et al., 2020). EnergyCoin Foundation was a partner in a research project together with Utrecht University and Resourcefully. The goal was to build a framework for smart fexible energy infrastructure: a blockchain-based platform for P2P energy transactions between DERs. EnergyCoin Foundation shared their experience on blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, local climate policy and climate communication. The landscape of energy production is being reshaped by DER, such as solar panels, battery energy storage, electric vehicles and charging stations. The rapid development of these distributed energy sources requires management systems for them to ensure future grid reliability. Proposed control systems, such as demand response, assume that the operation of DER is centrally managed by an aggregator or cooperative utility. However, these centralised control systems face scalability issues when the number of DER increases signifcantly. In addition, it is unclear how these management systems work when incentives or regulatory failures are present. The goal of the project was to develop a platform that enables P2P energy transactions between DERs, so that households with energy generation capacity can trade energy with each other. In addition, other nearby DER, such as EV charging stations, can also be engaged in a distributed, optimized, verifable and secure manner. To achieve this mission, the project partners developed an optimization algorithm that allows households to minimize their electricity costs and maximize the benefts of their PV system, while ensuring a proftable charging price for EV charging station owners. To enable secure and verifable energy transactions between entities, we implemented the optimization algorithm on a blockchain architecture. The project evaluated the technical and economic potential of the developed platform using actual data on household demand and PV generation profles, as well as EV charging station demand in a residential area in Amsterdam. The assessment was analysed for different penetration levels of DER, now and in the future, and under different electricity pricing and support schemes. The main fndings after completing the pilot, developing the algorithms and exploring the use of smart contracts to optimize the system of both trading and energy fow were that for optimal energy fow and trading, it makes sense to combine them into one optimization problem. It is important to use real data from a community and involve them in the process. The role of a smart contract as a virtual aggregator was detailed. Key fndings were that import cost reductions of up to 34.9% were found for the combined model and that the combined model shows 50% less peak energy imports (van Leeuwen et al., 2020).

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 265 3.5 DLT’s role in local energy markets In the last decade since the appearance of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and the blockchain system on which they are built, we have seen rapid development of this new technology to facilitate both data management and transactions between peers, without a central manager or server (Hrga, Capuder and Zarko, 2020). The general concept is called distributed ledger technology (DLT), because that is exactly what it is, a ledger, albeit with collective consensus and impossible to change records after they are written, thus immutable. A logical innovation for commodity trading and insurance, for example, because it can replace complex systems of letters of credit, but also often hailed as the solution to P2P energy trading. However, commodity trading, banking and insurance, complex as they have become, could be easier to convert to blockchains. The energy industry is even more regulated, has more stakeholders including governments, and is even more essential to daily existence and the economy. Although the authors have been involved in pilots where the technology has been developed and tested, we still do not see a mainstream adaptation of blockchain and energy supply. The most promising ones so far have been in the area of e-mobility, i.e., Elaad.nl.5 The fact that blockchains can help with access control and data privacy is a bit of a double-edged sword, as it does not go well with other privacy issues such as the right to be forgotten (Politou et al., 2021). Distributed ledgers can help design and operate transactive energy systems, but that does not include fully distributed and decentralised or independent of central control. When evaluating systems for real-world applications in the energy sector, several aspects need to be checked. Transaction speed, number of simultaneous transactions, scalability, transaction cost and consensus mechanism. And these aspects infuence each other; a fully distributed system exists by the grace of individual nodes that keep the system alive. If these nodes are not the direct stakeholders of the energy system that runs on them, some form of fee must exist, often the cryptocurrency of the system itself, for approving a transaction and creating the next block in the chain. This creates a new problem: the priority of transactions and the confrmation time of blocks. Independent nodes tend to select the transactions with the highest transaction costs for validation (Hrga, Capuder and Zarko, 2020). An ideal system is decentralised, secure and stable, but should not offer this at the expense of scalability. This is why we are now seeing more and more use in closed private settings where each user is also a node and authenticated. This can improve transaction speed, but still shows all data to all users. Therefore you need user authentication combined with access control and confdentiality. This leaves the original DLT mainly suitable, but particularly well suited, to a limited number of environments with many mutually untrusted stakeholders, and use cases such as asset ownership, digital identity, tokenization, smart contracts and digital relationships. Nevertheless, the technology is here to stay and existing policies and regulations will need to be revised to make it suitable for the current and future economy.

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4 Conclusion The risks of climate change and the rising costs of traditional energy sources have created the need for a thorough energy transition. Many small-scale pioneers started this by simply building the solutions, harvesting solar and wind energy. A game-changer, because it meant moving from top-down supply to decentralised generation of energy. It also meant relying on intermittent sources where central management was the norm. Both developments required a different form of management, a much better use of data and a two-way fow of data. An example of this was the novel use of guarantees of origin to label electricity, originally using data separately and now almost in real time (see Box D2.8). Communications and computer technology have undergone similar developments as much as they need each other in a decentralised, distributed world. If you change the stakeholders, change the technology and change the ownership, the market will change too, and new markets will be created, as well as new technology and the combination of these explored.

Box D2.8 The impact of guarantees of origin in the Netherlands - or how a market faw inspired citizens to do it better, and subsequently digitalisation will improve the markets, and fnally give citizens realtime transparency When the Dutch energy market was liberalized, then Minister of Economic Affairs Laurens Jan Brinkhorst wanted to prevent a sudden, uncontrollable rush to switch suppliers (WISE, 2020). To get off to a slow start, customers could only switch if they opted for a ‘green tariff’ from one of the suppliers. At the time, after years of mergers, three large regional energy suppliers remained. Those companies were owned by provinces and some municipalities due to the specifc history of ever-merging regional and local energy suppliers. Liberalization of the market meant that these government bodies could and would sell these companies. Eventually, Essent was sold to RWE in Germany and Nuon to Vattenfall in Sweden. Eneco was recently sold to Mitsubishi in Japan. To increase the sales value, it was important to have as many customers as possible. Companies started offering ‘green tariffs’ (to be backed up by the purchase and subsequent cancellation of Guarantees of Origin) at the same price as standard ‘grey’ tariffs, at a loss, because solar and wind power were rare and expensive in the Netherlands some 20 years ago. Customers were spoiled by this and continued to expect similar prices after the sell-off. The scarcity of Dutch GO’s and the large number of green tariff customers

Towards consumer-centred local markets? 267 (currently about 70% for private households) could only be met by importing European GO’s, perfectly legal and correct within the EU regulatory framework. The only problem was that companies often chose the cheapest GOs, such as Norwegian hydropower for 20 eurocent/MWh. Therefore the extra cost of giving the average Dutch household green energy was 70 eurocent/year. Unique in Europe, in countries like the UK green energy is more expensive and customers accept this, just like with organic products. In Germany and other countries with a feed-in tariff, the emphasis is more on green production than consumption through green tariffs. Guarantees of Origin are sometimes even called ‘Etikettenschwindel’ in Germany. Again, legally incorrect. Certifcation of production is the only way to distinguish energy sources after the production is included in the homogeneous mix in the grid. A GO is the most important attribute in the rightly chosen ‘book and claim’ system. This system has a number of faws that could be technically improved, but in essence the system is legally sound. In the Netherlands, customers discovered one of these faws, the aforementioned import of cheap hydropower, and someone coined the (legally incorrect) term ‘sham power’ … All of this can be seen as a side issue, but it is an important factor in the subsequent desire to do things better; which led to the surge in energy collectives and cooperatives that want to generate local renewable energy and beneft directly from it. The most important and very signifcant improvement is now to reduce the validity period from a year to an hour or even a quarter of an hour, thus providing real-time feedback on the origin of the energy consumed and thus creating a valuable tool to engage customers in balancing demand with the available supply of preferred sources. Now we will fnally be able to see exactly who sells which energy to whom at what moment as was advocated many years ago (Bouwhuis, Cozijnsen and Sweering, 2016). In this chapter, we looked at our own contributions to this feld of work, and spoke to many stakeholders in our home countries and far beyond. We looked at what is really happening, what the layers in the system are and how they affect each other. We were pleased to see that the introduction and success of many small-scale pilots have infuenced the EU to acknowledge the desires and changing times through new legislation that recognizes the important role communities can have in the energy transition. We looked at emerging new technologies such as blockchain and distributed layer technology and can only conclude that the best is yet to be discovered and will be seen sooner rather than later.

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Notes 1 https://clubvanwageningen.nl/. 2 The Bible, Genesis 1:31. 3 The term ‘holarchy’ comes from Arthur Koestler in his book ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ (1967). A holarchy is a system model based on ‘holons’. Holons are independent units that have autonomy, but at the same time are subject to control from some direction from one or more higher levels. A holarchy is a system concept that has properties of both a hierarchical model, with fxed rules with high reliability, and of an autonomously operating multi-agent system with high fexibility. 4 https://economytransformers.nl/. 5 https://www.elaad.nl/projects/iota-charging-station/.

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D.3 Digital energy trading platforms An economic analysis Thomas Cortade and Jean-Christophe Poudou1

1 Introduction In the context of the global energy transition, communication technologies and smart grids are opening up new opportunities and perspectives in the energy feld. The deployment of peer-to-peer (P2P) power exchange platforms could be an innovative pathway in this transition. The principle of these platforms is simple: typically, a small industrial or residential member of an electrical microgrid, who is also connected to the traditional grid (backup), can produce their own electricity from small-scale distributed renewable energy resources (wind or photovoltaic). This can be self-consumed or resold through a specialized and interconnected digital platform, which is a de facto online marketplace. The platform can also buy needed energy from connected members if necessary. These new consumer-producers are called prosumers and, by participating in these P2P platforms, they constitute a digital as well as an energy community.2 Soto et al. (2021) argue that the literature focuses mainly on trading platforms and blockchain.3 They believe trading platforms to be a fundamental piece in the implementation of the P2P model in the real world. The use of blockchain technology allows trading platforms to be more secure and effcient. These P2P exchange platforms emerged in the United States around 2015 and several experiments have now been launched in Europe. Their common denominators are being microgrid-based and having secure exchanges using blockchain protocols. In this chapter these experiences are reviewed, while some economic arguments and modelling are presented to analyse their effectiveness and performance. The economic issues of energy platforms, described in Section 2, are similar to those of digital P2P, such as eBay, Uber, Le Bon Coin and Airbnb. Such platforms are market-makers, enabling members of distinct groups to transact with each other. P2P power exchange platforms share some common features with digital ones: the energy platform is an intermediary (market-maker) that facilitates exchanges by monitoring buyers and sellers, using mainly blockchain technologies. Moreover, the platform allows for the implementation of fexible prices and sophisticated pricing mechanisms. The third section presents

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-18

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motivations for the emergence of P2P energy trading, while challenges and specifcities are presented in Section 4. Section 5 puts forward an economic analysis of P2P trading and prosuming. First, the basic situation in which there is no platform is considered. In this benchmark, the central grid is viewed as an aggregator that purchases or sells energy. Secondly, the platform is considered as an aggregator (a dealing platform or market-maker). A comparison is made with an autarkic platform confguration in which the grid is no longer an outside option.

2 Experiences and projects In Europe and the United States, the frst projects or experiments with information technology solutions for P2P exchange platforms were carried out at the level of neighbourhoods or urban islands. This is the case of Piclo (UK), Vanderbron (Netherlands), SonnenCommunity and Litchtblick Swarm Energy (Germany), Yeloha and Mosaic (USA). However, more integrated interconnected microgrid projects combine an exchange platform with a digital platform, such as TransActive Grid (USA) and Electron (UK). For these, all exchanges are based on trust on the one hand, and on securing transactions on the other, using the decentralized contractual relationships allowed by blockchain.4, 5 While Soto et al. (2021) present a very complete review of the literature on P2P energy trading and provide a summary of P2P trading energy projects (see Figure D3.1), this chapter simply presents the iconic Brooklyn microgrid based on blockchain, and some lesser-known projects. 2.1 The example of a transactive grid, Brooklyn The initial objective of the Brooklyn microgrid, launched in 2015, was to simplify the electricity metering and billing system and also to guard against power cuts caused by a damaged distribution network following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This microgrid is a decentralized community system, developed by TransActive Grid, in a joint venture with Lo3 Energy and Consensys. As described in Figure D3.2, this network project initially brought together fve buildings (about 50 homes) equipped with photovoltaic panels. Prosumers interact according to a protocol of decentralized exchanges of smart contracts, known as Ethereum, deployed in a blockchain supported by a web platform called Exergy (now named Pando). Customers use smart meters to control their bidirectional energy fow data. This overall system is based on the use of a blockchain network called “distributed ledger technology” for the storage and validation of energy transactions in this P2P environment. Initially, the project consisted of three stages. The frst (already implemented) aimed to create a local energy market to make transactions directly

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Figure D3.1 Comparison of different projects, from Soto et al. (2021)

and locally and to set a price for energy. To do so, it was necessary to roll out smart meters and confer a value on the energy produced, using a system of tokens. The second stage (in progress) aims to develop all the systems and improve power generation within the microgrid. The price of tokens must no longer take into account only the kWh sold through the local network, but also integrate more renewable generation units and increase the reputation of sellers. Finally, in a future third stage, the Brooklyn microgrid will

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Figure D3.2 Transactive Grid Project: a schematic presentation (Source: PwC, 2016).

be based on a distributed, autonomous intelligent system aiming to offer its members and local institutions an alternative to traditional energy suppliers. Indeed, New York is now experimenting with “Community Choice Aggregation”. This model tends to encourage the development of energy communities by allowing local governments to purchase their electricity from local communities. In the words of Orsini et al. (2019, p. 238), “The next phase of the project is the business model proof of concept. LO3 Energy is working with regulators and policymakers to determine the legal structure for delivering on its energy goals”. 2.2 Other types of experiment Following the iconic Brooklyn case, many P2P projects have been developed in the world, such as Yeloha, which aimed to create an Airbnb of solar energy, ultimately unsuccessfully. Each such experience has its own characteristics, particularly in terms of mechanisms for valuing exchanges and business models, among others. Studies6 have shown that prosumers can achieve billing savings (up to 20% on average) when exchanging electricity with peers, as per the very ambitious German project, Lition, tested in 2018 (GJETC, 2020). P2P microgrids also appear as solutions for domestic and local electrifcation in developing countries. This is the case in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Colombia, the last with the Transactive Energy Colombia project implemented in Medellin. The key aim of these projects is to connect low-income prosumers equipped with photovoltaic panels, with richer consumers not equipped with them. In Bangladesh, Solshare has developed similar technological solutions but based on connected objects (smart phones). Finally, more ambitious experiments have been simulated, such as in Spain, where a project consists of interconnecting two microgrids, Walqa and Atenea, 135 km apart, within the P2P-SmarTest consortium. This is organized around the industrial laboratories of small tertiary companies and involves additional actors such as an aggregator and ancillary service companies.

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3 Justifcations for the emergence of P2P energy trading At frst glance, prosumers seem simply to be encouraged to participate in microgrids to avoid the costs of connection7 to the traditional grid. Beyond that, however, questions arise as to the reasons, opportunities and mechanisms that lead actors to adopt these new types of decentralized organisation for electricity trading. Basically, the implementation of P2P energy platforms may change the way consumers behave as they become community members. This section presents various elements that contribute to the emergence of P2P energy trading. 3.1 Legal framework First and foremost, these modes of organisation have been fostered by recent changes in the law. In Europe, the recast of the Electricity Regulation (EU 2019/943), the Electricity Directive (EU 2019/944) and the Renewable Energy Directive (EU 2018/2001)8 establishes innovative new rules for electricity consumption and exchange, and in particular the legal recognition of P2P exchanges. Van Soest (2019, p.1) underlines that “while the current state of European Union energy law might in principle allow P2P electricity trading, the lack of specifc provisions is likely to cause issues in practice”. However, the American regulatory framework is more limited; P2P trading is possible only through microgrids and is prohibited with the central grid, which gives rise to some cases of autarky. Consequently, in practice, P2P energy trading remains challenging, especially in the USA. Beyond these legal considerations, several economic premises underlie the appearance of these P2Ps in electricity. 3.2 The sharing economy and social value A frst premise draws on the ideas of the sharing economy. The global advent of P2P exchanges of digital services (Uber, Airbnb, etc.) may be a source of inspiration for the electric industry and sector. Krishnan et al. (2003) argue that P2P networks can be perceived as either public goods or club goods. The characteristics of such goods imply that the design of exchange platforms is essential to avoid market collapses. A second premise is based on the creation of a common social value generated by prosumers through local exchanges, rather than with traditional energy suppliers. This social value is related to altruism. Everyone prefers to consume energy produced by a peer and to know with whom they are exchanging. Wilkins et al. (2020) describe experiences showing that participants develop shared values when trading within the platform and focus on understanding how it works. This tacit cooperation in P2P exchanges implies a greater economic surplus for both consumers and prosumers, although potentially creating a reliance on the community.

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3.3 P2P and the environment A third argument is environmental. In April 2021, the European Commission adopted an EU mitigation target of at least 55% for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. Energy P2P platforms may contribute to reaching this target since they are based mainly on decentralized solar or wind generation units. This environmental objective is further reinforced by the ongoing reduction in the overall costs of renewable energy, thus contributing to promoting the development of microgrids and the emergence of prosumers. 3.4 Technologies and P2P The last argument is technological. As noted by Mengelkamp et al. (2018), the development of technologies, such as blockchain, allows for the decentralization and automation of exchanges, essential for balancing supply and demand within microgrids, without intermediaries (or aggregators). P2P energy exchanges are based on three essential elements: smart contracts, cryptography and an agreement mechanism. Smart contracts are a set of logical rules (self-executing and self-exclusive) pre-programmed to reach a trade agreement. Cryptography ensures the security of digital transactions and guarantees the protection of data and information. Finally, the agreement mechanism allows for a decentralized exchange. This system is therefore based on blockchain technology, whose objective is to guarantee the transparency, integrity, reliability, immutability and scalability of exchanges in a decentralized manner, as pointed out by Zia et al. (2019). Access rights in the distributed ledger technology may be public or private, and with or without permission. In the case of a right of public access without permission, all actors in the network can record and validate transactions. Conversely, for a public right with permission, only chosen users are allowed. In the case of private access rights, a membership contract is required to access the network. Hence, there is a trade-off between permission and the effciency of the system. Without permission, the transaction mechanism is more transparent but less effcient because calculation costs are higher. At the other extreme, with private permission, the mechanism becomes less transparent but more effcient. This process then enables an equilibrium market price to be determined for each transaction, using real-time information on purchases and sales within the decentralized electricity grid. Other objectives are achievable through this technology, such as maximising prosumers’ benefts, minimising costs within the microgrid and solving possible congestion and failure problems. While the foregoing arguments seem important, personal interests, such as the monetary value of the energy traded and the proftability of prosumers’ investments, can be also signifcant incentives.

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4 The challenges of energy P2P Although the emergence of P2P microgrids is on the way, their development and implementation raise some questions and face several challenges. 4.1 Market design P2P energy microgrids are affected by the general issues encountered by digital P2P, as considered by Einav et al. (2016). The design of the P2P market must imperatively solve the problems related to effective matching between prosumers. This adds constraints to the price formation process, which is based on sophisticated algorithms adapted to the architecture of each microgrid, as indicated by Soto et al. (2021). This issue is more complex since electricity involves resolutions in almost continuous time to balance supply and demand, especially if the system is intended to be self-suffcient. Storage infrastructures9 are thus needed to compensate for the intermittency of wind or solar generation. An information and communication system connecting prosumers with each other is also required to alleviate issues of mutual trust. These ancillary services must be allocated within the P2P infrastructure without disrupting the trading mechanisms, which can lead to unforeseen additional costs or the costly use of intermediaries. 4.2 Pricing While price formation on digital platforms has been widely studied, particularly from the angle of two-sided markets,10 it can only be partially transposed to energy P2Ps. Because of the lack of product differentiation for energy services, prosumers attach greater value to the membership, rather than the usage, externality in the microgrid. Thus, regardless of the price mechanism or business model implemented in these P2Ps, there are strong incentives for prosumers to opt in. This is mainly because the electricity traded with peers will be exchanged at a more favourable price level than the backup price. However, this desirable property is not necessarily verifed, as will be shown in Section 5. Indeed, electricity being a homogeneous good, the equilibrium price will necessarily be anchored in the backup price, which is the central grid rate. 4.3 Specifc characteristics Like digital platforms, energy P2Ps have specifc characteristics that infuence their performance. First, the local supply of energy entails an inherent risk due to the intermittency of distributed renewable energy sources. Climatic hazards can lead some prosumers to behave opportunistically, for example, through a “hold-up”, which means trying to resell their excess energy at an infated price. This risk acts as a brake on the development

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of P2P trading in the microgrid, and is even greater if self-suffciency or autarky is desired. Being connected to the grid, as a backup, mitigates this risk but reduces the social value of local exchanges. As a result, there is a strong link between the success of P2P and the pricing of supply through the traditional distribution system. There may be a “snowball effect” risk (as in the case of energy communities, cf. Abada et al., 2020b): the development of energy P2Ps could be boosted by an increase in grid access tariffs due to a decrease in access revenues from prosumers. All these strategic risks and behaviours could reduce the incentives for investing in distributed generation units dedicated to P2P, but also, at the margin, reduce efforts to maintain the traditional distribution network.11

5 P2P trading and prosumers: a model This section analyses the impact of the exchange platforms design on the effectiveness and relevance of energy trading within a prosumer community. A simple stylized modelling is used, whereby residential households that adopt decentralized renewable production units aim to trade the excess energy fows that they produce among themselves. How can such P2P trading arrangements be viable for all participants perceived as a community, but in a non-cooperative way? Our model considers that prosumers, (i.e., consumers and producers of energy goods) can offer these goods in competition with professionals (i.e., companies or local communities), interacting with other prosumers and possibly with pure consumers on a dedicated platform. The platform is just considered as a dealer that purchases excess energy from prosumers and resells it to consumers either directly or through the grid on wholesale markets or to a professional supplier. It thus acts as an aggregator. Let us suppose that there is a mass n of agents, who could be households, individuals, small and medium-size businesses or sellers (a nomenclature can be found in Table D3.1). These agents have a load factor (state of demand) of y ˛ [ 0,Y ] distributed according to a cumulative H ( y ) where H ˛ ( y ) = h ( y ) and H (Y ) = n. Here Y is the maximal load that can be achieved by an agent. The load factor y   describes the desired level of consumption in all periods or states of nature. It is related to the agent’s standard energy needs and the characteristics of the household (i.e., dwelling size, number of individuals, installed power). To simplify the set-up, this baseline level of consumption y is assumed to allow a surplus level v to be derived, but this decreases to 0 if it is less than needed, that is: u ( y ) = v > u ( z ) = 0 when z < y. As a result, agents with a load factor y will always try to reach this level but should not surpass it. This represents the well-known inelasticity of energy demand at the individual level. To satisfy their needs, an agent can choose to adopt an individual production unit of energy (hereafter IPU), whose maximal production capacity is q > 0 (kWp) at an upfront capacity cost k > 0. It is assumed that q is fxed,

Economics of digital trading platforms 279 meaning that it is normalized among agents. For example, this could occur if the agent acquires a dwelling in a connected residential area where residential cells are standardized. Being a prosumer means that the agent uses the installed capacity to self-consume or sell excess energy. This may be possible according to the excess capacity observed by the agent at each time y − qx. Here the variable qx represents the available amount of the renewable capacity q that is dispatchable in state x ˛ [ 0,1]. It is independently distributed according to a distribution which yields expectations or mean values, denoted E [.] . The state of nature x represents weather conditions or the occurrence of failures, that is all external conditions that make the IPU intermittent. In each state of nature x, an agent that has installed a capacity q (i.e., a prosumer) may be either a pure consumer if y − qx ° 0 or a potential seller if y − qx < 0. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that Y > q > 0. This means that, in favourable conditions (x = 1), there are always some buyers (those with load factors near the upper bound Y ) and sellers (those with small load factors near the lower bound 0). Now let us describe the external supply side. First, it is assumed that unlimited energy volumes may be provided to all agents that demand them at a given price a > 0, considered as invariant with respect to x. This can be done by centralized professional suppliers or an integrated frm. This price a is then a grid price, which may encompass the energy wholesale prices and volumetric parts of grid access tariffs. However, in the P2P trading context, external supply refers to that of the (centralized) grid. In some sense, the grid supply is the outside option for all agents, whether or not they are prosumers. Secondly, there is the side of the dealing platform. Through the platform, all prosumers may wish to trade their excess/lack of energy volumes in any state of nature. Its basic business model is to resell the excess energy volumes to interested community members that are connected, or to the central grid if no deals are found. As the central grid is considered exogenous, the platform manager is assumed to be unable to change the price a set outside the platform, so cannot make a proft on this external side. The platform purchase price is denoted by px, and rx ˜ 0 the platform selling price within the platform.12 Thus, if agents with a profle y are consumers in state x , they will have to pay an amount px ( y − qx ) ˝ 0 if they purchase their energy through the platform. On the contrary, if they are sellers in state x, they will make a proft rx ( y − qx ) ˝ 0 if they sell their excess energy through the platform. Agents participating in the platform have an intrinsic preference when they are served through this channel, which is represented by a parameter ˜ ° 0. This corresponds to the surplus from being in relation with identifed agents (neighbours, fatmates, members of a dedicated association), or sharing energy with them. This parameter can be identifed as a social or altruistic value from belonging to a group or community. It also represents part of the surplus for avoiding power cuts when distribution grids fail, or for reducing

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transaction costs with professional suppliers. It can also be related to the gain from some local ancillary or specifc services provided by the platform that are valuable to the connected consumers. Finally, it can alternatively be assimilated into the environmental preference of an agent that produces with renewable residential sources, e.g., “fossil fuel freedom”). As a result, an agent that fulfls their needs through the local platform derives a utility level of u ( y + ˝) = v + ˝. Hence, for an agent with a load factor y , the utility from trading through the platform in state is U ( y, x, q ) = ˝ + v − px ( y − qx ) if y ˜ qx, and ˛ + v + rx (qx − y ) if y < qx . The utility from trading through using the grid is then U ( y, x, q ) = v − a ( y − qx ) if y ˜ qx , and v + a (qx − y ) if y < qx. As a result, for each x , there may be yˆx = qx such that the agent is a pure self-consumer (if x > 0). If agents have not installed any capacity (s = 0), they are considered as pure consumers and they derive a surplus v − ay. 5.1 Benchmark case without platform Let us frst consider the benchmark situation where the platform does not exist. The central grid is viewed as an aggregator that purchases or sells energy at a given price a. Agents have just to decide whether to install the IPU capacity q at cost k or not. A prosumer with a load y does, if E [U ] − k ˝ E [U | q = 0 ] = v − ay , where expectations are taken over x and with E [U ] = v − aEB ( y) [ y − qx ] + aES ( y) [qx − y ] = v − ay + aqE [ x ] Here E [U ] is the expected utility from being a prosumer and trading with the grid, and E [U | q = 0 ]   is the expected utility from being only a consumer and trading with the grid. B ( y ) and S ( y ) are, respectively, the sets of states of nature in which the prosumer y is a buyer, respectively, a seller, i.e., B ( y ) = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : 0  x  y / q} and S ( y ) = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : 1  x  y / q}. The latter set S ( y ) may potentially be empty, as for instance when y = Y , x ˜ 1 < Y / q. Looking for the indifferent prosumer y0 such as E [U ] − k = E [U | q = 0 ], there is aqE [ x ] − k = 0 which does not depend on the value of y. As a result, with no platform, the total incentives to adopt the IPU for an agent y amount to I 0 = max{qE [ ax ] − k,0}. Without platforms, no prosumer adopts if aqE [ x ] < k ,  but they all do if aqE [ x ] > k. This benchmark result can be interpreted as a cost-beneft trade-off for any prosumer. On one hand, the benefts of being a prosumer are the amount aqE [ x ], which are the opportunity gains of total purchase cost savings that are expected for a prosumer y that has installed an amount capacity of q. On the other hand, the cost k is the fxed expenditure to have access to this capacity. As a result, if said benefts outweigh the costs, a prosumer adopts the IPU. Moreover, as these cost savings are independent of the load factor y , either all agents are prosumers or they are all pure consumers.

Economics of digital trading platforms 281 5.2 Platform as an aggregator Let us suppose that a technical dealer (and potentially market-maker platform) can identify prosumers’ supply and demand and ensure their balance. In the sense of an electricity system, the platform is also an aggregator that dispatches the power within the local grid and towards the central grid. It can purchase prosumers’ supply, if any, at a price rx ˜ 0 and resell these electricity fows to connected consumers at a price px ˜ 0 . The objective of the platform can be proft-oriented or welfare maximizing.13 To start with, let us suppose that the platform has a local welfare objective. One can imagine that “turnkey digital technologies” (blockchain-based smart contracts, smart meters) and microgrids are installed by some energy communities and the trading platform can be managed by users. Moreover, one might expect an operating cost associated with managing the platform, and this cost would increase with the number of suppliers and consumers on the platform (need for huge servers). We therefore denote by µ the mass of connected users in each state x and c the unit cost for managing this mass. The platform will implement choices that are individually preferable for each participant. In some state x, agents with a profle   y  will be consumers within the platform if they prefer to purchase the energy needed or sell the excess energy on the platform instead of to the grid. The total supply on the platform to be resold is denoted S ( rx ) . This must match the total demand D ( px ) from prosumers who lack power over their instantaneous domestic production. However, some agents may prefer not to purchase or resell on the platform, but rather to the grid. The platform cannot make money from them. To form this aggregate demand and supply, let us determine the individual cases. A prosumer with load y ˜ qx, purchases on the platform if (for ease of presentation the x argument is omitted): v + ˝ ˙ ( p − a )( y − qx ) Here   v + °   represents the direct periodic gains for a prosumer from being connected to the community through the platform. This implies that the demand at state x is such that ˆ Y ˘ d = ( y − qx ) dH ˘ ˘ qx D( p ) = ˇ ( p ) ˘ ˘ d ( p) = ( y − qx ) dH ˘ qx 

˜

˜

if

p p p> p

If p > a , the demand is price-sensitive and equals d ( p) and there is a foor purchase price level p such that ˛ ( p) = Y , where ˛ ( p) is the highest load

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value for which the platform demand peaks at a given price p. In the same spirit, a prosumer y < qx will be a supplier within the platform if, when r < a that is if qx ˛ y ˛ ˝ ( r ) and ˛ ( r ) = 0 with r is the selling price level. Hence, the aggregate supply at state x is such that: ˆ qx ˘ s = (qx − y) dH ˘ ˘ 0 rr S (r) = ˇ if qx r p ˆ (ii) p* = p and r* ˜ r whenever s ˜ d that is for whenever s < d that is for x < x, * * x ˜ xˆ and (iii) p > a > r for all x Proposition 1 holds that, in the case of low availability conditions (x  low), the aggregate demand on the platform is structurally high and the supply low, so the selling price is stated at its maximum value to attract all sellers to the platform. As a result, the demand price just clears the market. In high availability conditions (x high), the aggregate supply on the platform is structurally high and the demand low, so the purchase price is stated at its minimum value to push possible local buyers to be active on the platform. The selling price just clears the market. It can also be seen that both purchase and selling prices are less desirable than the grid price in nominal

(

)

Economics of digital trading platforms 283 terms. This derives from the fact that, if they were more desirable, all potential consumers in each state (respectively, sellers) would be buyers on the platform (resp. sellers), demand and supply would be rigid, and no equilibrium prices would exist. To have a market equilibrium, prices should be decoupled from the grid price. This optimal price equilibrium puts the agent in a trade set representing the states of nature in which the prosumer is a buyer from the grid (BG ), on the platform (B P ), a seller on the platform (SG ) and fnally a seller to the grid (SG ). Figure D3.3 represents these sets, as well as the equilibrium net consumption for a prosumer y and the way energy is bought/sold inside or outside the platform. They write: BG = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : x  b ( y )}  and B P = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : b ( y )  x  y / q} S P = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : s ( y )  x  y / q}  and SG = {x ˘ [ 0,1] : x  s ( y )}

( )

( )

and when14 x = ˝b ( y ) : ˙ p* = y and x = ˝s ( y ) : ˙ r* = y. Note by defnition that ˙b (Y ) = ˙s ( 0 ) = E [ y ] as when ˛ p* =Y and ˛ p* = 0 then d = s , nq E [ y] which occurs in xˆ = . nq Now, on top of the equilibrium market clearing prices defned in Proposition 1 and the trading sets defned above, we can deduce the prosumer’s incentives to adopt an IPU when the trading platform is active. For prosumers with a load profle y, the expected surplus for participating in the platform is thenw

( )

( )

E [U ] = v − aEBG [ y − qx ] + aESG [qx − y ] + EB P ˘ − p* ( y − qx ) + ES P ˘ + r* (qx − y )

Thus, they adopt the capacity q when E [U ] − k ˝ [U | q = 0 ], and the indifferent prosumer y * is such E [U ] − k = v − ay. Rearranging the terms leads to equality:

(

)

(

)(

)

(

)(

)

E [U ] − k − v − ay* = aqE [ x ] − k + EB P ˘ − p* − a y* − qx  + ES P ˘ + r* − a qx − y*  = 0

First, we see that, contrary to the benchmark case without the platform, the load factor now is involved in the decision. So, in general, only some agents decide to participate in the platform and to adopt an IPU. The incentives to invest in an IPU for an agent y are I P ( y ) = max{E [U ] − k − (v − ay ) , 0}. However, if we assume that aqE [ x ] = k, so that all agents are indifferent to being prosumers or not in the benchmark case, they are not all worse off connected to the platform, as now: I P ( y ) = EB P ˆˇ˝ − ( p * −a ) ( y − qx )˘ + ES P ˆˇ˝ + ( r * −a ) (qx − y )˘  0

(1)

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Figure D3.3 Individual trades within the platform

When both sets B P and S p are not empty, for an agent with a load factor y, both terms in I P ( y ) are non-negative. For these states of nature, an agent with a load factor y has a greater surplus trading with peers on the platform than with the grid. Indeed, the strength of this improvement depends on price levels, mainly the spread p* − r* . Assume now that aqE [ x ] > k, such that all agents install an IPU without a platform, then connect to the platform, as (1) holds, their incentives to invest I P ( y ) increase compared to I 0 in the benchmark case. Hence the following proposition can be stated: Proposition 2. When the dealing platform is active, all agents have superior incentives to adopt an IPU. Even if the platform prices are less favourable than the grid price, the intrinsic and differentiated services provided by the platform (safer distribution, local trades, traceability or just sharing renewable sources) lead some prosumers to trade their domestic production within the platform. The intuition that drives Proposition 2 is that, on top of the cost-beneft trade-off for any prosumer to install the IPU (being a trader on the platform or not), there are now further gains and costs associated to participating in P2P trading for some agents. These gains are driven by the intrinsic values of participation and grid cost savings. The costs are market-based: electricity purchase or selling platform prices are less favourable than those from the grid. However, adopting an IPU for trading with peers allows such gains to be made and costs to be avoided, at least for some states of nature. Ultimately, the platform cost-beneft trade-off is positive for all agents. Indeed, if no agent were a prosumer without a platform, i.e., if aqE [ x ] < k, when the dealing platform exists, there would be room for some prosumers

Economics of digital trading platforms 285 to install the IPU: the platform cost-beneft trade-off would remain positive. Consequently, if no agent installs an IPU when there is no platform, some agents (but not all) install the IPU and are not worse off when the dealing platform is active. To understand this last result, one can see that the variation of the investment incentives I P ( y ) with the load profle of agents is non-monotonic as I P˛ ( y ) = ES p [ a − r *] − EB P [ p * −a ]. The relative price spreads p * −a and a − r * at each state are key factors that determine the sign of these variations. On one hand, when the load profle of agents increases, they will be buyers on the platform more frequently (at the margin), and will have to pay a sourcing cost, i.e., the premium p * −a. This effect reduces their incentives to adopt an IPU, i.e., −EB P [ p * −a ] < 0. On the other hand, those same agents will be sellers on the platform less often and will not have to bear the shortfalls resulting from selling on it. This effect increases their incentives to invest, i.e., ES p [ a − r *] > 0 at the margin. Ultimately, one cannot assess exactly which effect dominates, so the variation of I P ( y ) with respect to the load profle of agents has indeterminate shapes.

5.3 Autarkic microgrid In our main approach, it was assumed that the grid is an outside option at each time or in each state of IPU availability. What would the picture be if this option were not possible? This is the autarkic platform confguration. In this case, the utility of trading with the (dealing) platform is U ( y, x, q ). However, it is zero15 when prosumers demand energy but do not fnd local supplies or when they do not sell their excess energy. Then the demand d ( p ) and supply s ( r )  defned on page are modifed in the sense that the grid price is no longer a backup price. Consequently, the foor purchase price is now v+˛ pA = and, on the supply side, the ceiling selling price is r A = 0.16 Now, Y − qx the key point is that the supply is always totally rigid since it is not possible to sell any excess energy outside the platform. For occasional suppliers it is impossible to earn money from their excess energy, so they must give it up at the ceiling price, here zero. As a result, when x ˜ xˆ , Proposition 1(I) holds: IPUs are less available, the potential demand is high and the purchase price p* is adjusted to clear the market. Some occasional consumers with high load profles are willing to incur outages and curtailment of electricity or accept consumption demand response. When x ˜ xˆ , Proposition 1(ii) is modifed because the selling price cannot adjust, as the supply is always totally rigid, and it remains at its ceiling

286 Thomas Cortade and Jean-Christophe Poudou level. So p* = pA and r* = 0. All consumers are served, but excess electricity remains: the maximal local supply at the zero price is always higher than local demand. Some suppliers (randomly) accept that their excess energy is considered as a fatal product or a power loss. Consequently, autarky in the platform has a detrimental effect on the incentives to install an IPU. The expected surplus for participating to the autarkic microgrid is now written as: E [U A ] = EB 0   [ 0 ] + EB P   ˇ + v − p* ( y − qx ) + ES P   [ˇ + v ] + ES 0   [ 0 ] A

A

where BAP

A

A

and SAP

refer to the states of IPU availability for which a prosumer y is a consumer/seller within the platform, BA0 refers to states in which a consumer cannot be served and SA0 , states in which a prosumer cannot sell the excess energy. Now the incentive to invest in IPU for an agent y is I A ( y ) = max{E [U A ] − k − (v − ay ) ,0} which writes: I A ( y ) = aqE[ x ] − k − EB 0 [v − a ( y − qx)] + EB P [ˆ − ( p * −a )( y − qx )] A

A

+ ES P [ˆ − a(qx − y)] − ES 0 [v + a(qx − y)] A

A

Thus, when qE [ ax ] = k, meaning that no agent would be a prosumer in the benchmark case, I A ( y ) is not necessarily positive. This is frst because, from the above discussion, we have here BAP ˜ B P and SAP ˜ S P , which means that there are less proftable states for the prosumers in the case of the autarkic platform than in the dealing platform (studied in Subsection 5.2). Secondly, this is also due to surplus losses incurred from outages or curtailments for occasional consumers −EB 0 [v − a ( y − qx)] . Finally, revenues forgone due A to power losses for occasional sellers −ES 0 [v + a ( qx − y )] also create a negA ative effect on the incentives to install an IPU. Proposition 3. When the dealing platform is active on an autarkic microgrid, all agents do not necessarily have superior incentives to adopt an IPU. In contrast with Proposition 2, the viability of an autarkic microgrid is more diffcult to achieve as local outages or curtailments and revenue losses cannot be compensated by the external grid. Therefore, prosumers anticipate that their IPU investments will be ineffective or unproftable in some states of nature. The cost-beneft trade-off for any prosumer to install an IPU is less favourable.

(

(

)

)

6 Conclusion The development of P2P microgrids is underway. Rifkin (2011) prophesied the rise of the Energy Internet, arguing that using internet technology to transform the power grid on every continent into an energy internet

Economics of digital trading platforms 287 Table D3.1 Nomenclature of variables

n y H ( y) v u (.)

U (.) q k I0 x px rx ˜ a B( y ) S( y ) µ S ( rx )

Mass of agents A load factor (or state of demand) Distribution of the load factor Surplus from the consumption of y Utility level The utility from trading through the platform Maximal production capacity by the IPU Capacity up-front cost Incentive to adopt the IPU (benchmark case) State of nature (weather, for example) Platform purchase price Platform selling price Intrinsic preference to join the platform Selling and purchasing price for the central grid Sets of nature where a prosumer is a buyer Sets of nature where a prosumer is a seller The mass of connected users to the platform Total supply to the platform

B ( px )

Total demand on the platform

˜( p )

The highest load value for which the platform demand peaks at a given price p The lowest load value for which the platform supply peaks at a given price r Total welfare for the platform Buyer from the central grid Seller to the central grid

˜( r ) W BG SG BP SP IP ( y) BAP SAP I A( y)

Buyer from the platform Seller to the platform The incentives to invest in IPU Buyer to the platform in the autarky microgrid Seller to the platform in the autarky microgrid The incentives to invest in an IPU in the autarky microgrid

could help households sell surplus energy back to the grid and share it with neighbours. This chapter has conducted an economic analysis of such local trading organizations, and shown that P2P energy trading platforms have some economic relevance and local effciency. The role of the external grid price in the platform design and as a determinant of prosumers’ participation and investments in distributed renewable energy sources was also discussed. This analysis has prompted some recommendations for economic policy and regulation. The diffusion of P2P energy trading platforms would

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require a public evaluation to validate their social utility and should be supported by political commitment to remove some of the regulatory barriers. In the Brooklyn example, the regulatory framework has not allowed P2P exchanges to be extended beyond the microgrid into the public distribution network. As shown above, an autarkic microgrid is less favourable for prosumers when it is intended to trade with peers. Nowadays, there seems to be a certain degree of economic or regulatory inertia preventing the advent of the Energy Internet foreseen by Rifkin.

Notes 1 The authors acknowledge the research support program of MUSE under grant AAP17REC-POTEM (project “Peer-to-peer platforms for sustainable energy and mobility”) and the association ThinkSmart Grids for their fnancial and intellectual support. 2 For an overview of some energy communities, see Caramizaru and Uihlein (2020) and Abada et al. (2020a) for an economic analysis of their viability. 3 They also present more technical aspects of the literature such as game theory, simulation, optimization and algorithm. 4 A comprehensive review of projects is given in Zhang et al. (2017) and IRENA (2020). 5 Lansiti and Lakhani (2017): blockchain is “blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties effciently and in a verifable and permanent way”. For a complete economic analysis of this technology, see Abadi and Brunnermeier (2018). 6 See Kusakana (2020) for further details. 7 From IRENA (2020), about 41.1% of electricity costs are represented by grid costs and therefore avoidable through P2P local transactions. 8 More specifcally in articles 2, paragraph 14–15, 16 and 18 and article 2–2.a of the Directive EU 2018/2001. 9 There is also a growing literature on environmental concerns about the external costs of solar and battery systems. King et al. (2018) revealed that only 2% of the 3,300 tonnes of waste from lithium-ion batteries generated in Australia in 2016 was recycled. 10 For a complete analysis see Rochet and Tirole (2003) and Weyl (2010). 11 According to Azim et al. (2020) power losses may appear of the makes of P2P exchanges in microgrids connected to the traditional. 12 In such a model with vertical differentiation for participating in the platform, negative prices would be possible. However, we assume that in front of a negative price, a seller does not trade. 13 The existence of advanced technologies may induce specifc and costly investments. As a result, the dealing platform could also be a for proft organization. This case is treated in Cortade and Poudou (2021). y ˝ < y/q . Identically for 14 Indeed, we always have ˜b ( y ) ° y/q as ˜b ( y ) = − q q( p * −˙) ˜ s ( y ) ° y/q . Moreover, they are both increasing in y. 15 We assume in the basic model that 0 is the choke-off utility level. 16 Indeed, if negative prices have been allowed, occasional suppliers would have been better off selling their energy in excess at a negative price.

Economics of digital trading platforms 289

References Abada I., Ehrenmann A. and Lambin X. (2020a). On the viability of energy communities, The Energy Journal, 41(1), 113150. Abada I., Ehrenmann A. and Lambin X. (2020b). Unintended consequences: The snowball effect of energy communities, Energy Policy, 143, 111597. Abadi J. and Brunnermeier M. (2018). Blockchain Economics NBER Working Paper No. 25407. Azim M.I., Tushar W. and Saha T.K. (2020). Investigating the impact of P2P trading on power losses in grid-connected networks with prosumers, Applied Energy, 263. Caramizaru A. and Uihlein A. (2020). Energy Communities: An Overview of Energy and Social Innovation, EUR30083 EN, Luxembourg: Publications Offce of the European Union. Cortade T. and Poudou J.-C. (2021). Peer-to-Peer Energy Platforms: Incentives for Prosuming, Working Paper hal-03212480, HAL. Einav L., Farronato C. and Levin J. (2016). Peer-to-Peer Markets, Annual Economic Review, 8, 615–635. GJETC (2020). Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading and Power Purchasing Agreements, Report, Wuppertal, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, http://www.gjetc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/GJETC_Digitalization-Study-II_P2P-and-PPA.pdf IRENA (2020). Innovation Landscape Brief: Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading. Abu Dhabi: International Renewable Energy Agency. King S., Boxall N. and Bhatt A. (2018). Lithium Battery Recycling in Australia - Current Status and Opportunities for Developing a New Industry. Australia: CSIRO, DOI: 10.25919/5b69ec381e06c Krishnan R., Smith R. and Telang R. (2003). The economics of peer-to-peer networks, Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 5(3), 31–44. Kusakana K. (2020). Optimal peer-to-peer energy sharing between grid-connected prosumers with different demand profles and renewable energy sources. Smart Grid IET, 4(3), 270–283, DOI: 10.1049/stg2.12027 Lansiti M. and Lakhani K.R. (2017). The truth about blockchain, Harvard Business Review, 95(1), 118–127. Mengelkamp E., Gärttner J., Rock K., Kessler S., Orsini L. and Weinhardt C. (2018). Designing microgrid markets: A case study: The Brooklyn microgrid, Applied Energy, 210, 870–880. Orsini L, Kessler S., Wei J. and Field J. (2019). How the Brooklyn microgrid and transactive grid are paving the way to next-gen energy markets, In: Wencong S., Huang A.Q. (eds.), The Energy Internet, Woodhead Publishing, Ch. 10, 223–239. Perez Y. (2018). Blockchain and applications in the electrical sector: Opportunities and black boxes, Letter from INSHS, May, 36–38. PwC, Global Power and Utilities (2016). Blockchain - An Opportunity for Energy Producers and Consumers? Report, on behalf of Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice centre) NRW, Düsseldorf, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/assets/ pwc-blockchain-opportunity-for-energy-producers-and-consumers.pdf Rifkin J. (2011). The Third Industrial Revolution; How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. St. Martin’s Griffn, Palgrave MacMillan.

290 Thomas Cortade and Jean-Christophe Poudou Rochet J.-C. and Tirole J. (2003). Platform competition in two-sided markets, Journal of the European Economic Association, 1(4), 990–1029. Soto E.A., Bosman L.B., Wollega E. and Leon-Salas W.D. (2021). Peer-to-peer energy trading: A review of the literature, Applied Energy, 283(2021), 116268. Van Soest H. (2018). Peer-to-peer electricity trading: A review of the legal context. Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, 19(3–4), 180–199, DOI: 10.1177/1783591719834902 Weyl E.G. (2010). A price theory of multi-sided platforms, American Economic Review, 100(4), 164, 2–72. Wilkins D.J., Chitchyan R. and Levine M. (2020). Peer-to-peer energy markets: Understanding the values of collective and community trading. In: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘20) April 2020 Pages 1–14, DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376135 Zhang C., Wua J., Longa C. and Cheng M. (2017). Review of existing peer-to-peer energy trading projects, Procedia Energy, 105, 2563–2568. Zia M.F., Benbouzid M., Elbouchikhi E., Muyeen S.M., Techato K. and Guerrero J.M. (2020). Micro grid transactive energy: Review, architectures, distributed ledger technologies, and market analysis. IEEE Access, 8, 19410–19432.

Section E: Introduction

Design energy projects for multi-stakeholders’ communities Decision support tools While the previous section focused on the operational management phases of energy communities, examining the value of peer-to-peer digital platforms allowing energy communities to exchange energy via a local marketplace, this chapter explores the value provided by digital design tools in the design phases of energy community operations. The pivotal actors and objects here are the methods and tools operated by the actors in charge of the design. It should be emphasized that methods and tools are the scientifc entry point, in engineering sciences and applied physics, which have led to the development of the tools presented in this chapter. These tools must, frst and foremost, integrate physical and technological constraints and objectives. However, the articles in this chapter show that these tools alone are not suffcient, additionally requiring complex skills. They must therefore be seen as intermediate entities or objects, bringing the pivotal actors into a relationship with each other. On the one hand, there are the designers, using these methods and tools, which they must operate in conjunction with the actors in the feld. It is the latter who are the bearers and prescribers of a decisive part of the constraints and objectives, through their motivations and aspirations. Some of these elements cannot be quantifed, explained or made explicit. With the help of the designer actors, who may be in design offces, consultancy structures or even belong to the energy community, an iterative dialogue must be developed with the actors on the ground. This allows for the establishment and dynamics of the project in the face of constraints and objectives, while taking into account the constraints of external actors who have a determining impact, such as the regulator. One of the interesting perspectives open to energy communities which we glimpse in these two chapters is the new relationship that must be established between the designer actors, and the producer and consumer actors who are part of the energy community.

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All this results from the use of knowledge and know-how from technology and engineering sciences, as the basis of the techniques of digital design tools; input from social sciences approaches; mediation and negotiation between actors as methods of relaxing constraints; multi-criteria analysis, and even open processes such as open-source. The two articles illustrate this, the frst applied to an energy community at the scale of a residential neighbourhood, and the second to the recovery of waste heat between actors in a district. This also shows in passing that synergies and linkages can and will exist with and between energy systems (stock, network, etc.), and that management/design support tools must be designed with a multi-actor and multi-energy vector (electricity, heat, etc.) approach. All the above reveals why there is a need for management support tools from the design to the supervision/operation phases to ensure “scio-engineering” in and for energy communities: • •

At the design phase, there is a need to facilitate multi-actor negotiation/projection and anticipate the constraints of necessarily fexible supervision At the supervision/operation phases, there is a need to have anticipated before, as early as possible in the initial design phases, the management of fexibility

Chapter E.1. Proposal to take into account stakeholders’ motivations in models of optimization decision support tools, by Morriet, Wurtz and Debizet The chapter presents inter-disciplinary work between the humanities and social sciences on the one hand, and engineering sciences on the other. It is co-written by authors and laboratories from these two felds. This work shows how, from a methodological point of view, human and social sciences have driven the observation dimension, using the results of social surveys and corpora produced by semi-directive methods from real feldwork. This is combined with the theoretical and conceptual approach of socio-energetic nodes, allowing the actors and their infuential variables to be identifed on the basis of these corpora. The science for the engineering part of the project aims to produce a digital tool by providing modelling and optimization methods resulting from what can be grouped under the theory of decision. Applying the theoretical and conceptual approach, object-oriented programming is used, allowing the addition of actors and their interaction with the technical system within the framework of object libraries. This also enables their infuential variables, when they are quantitative, to be represented in the form of constraints and objectives in correlation with the systems and their own limitations in terms of physical functioning.

Section E Introduction: Community projects design tools

293

As a result, the main fndings and proposals of this chapter are: – A methodology for identifying actors, stakeholders and their infuencing variables, starting from their motivations, with the assumed modelling bias of focusing on the actors infuencing the project, and the decision variables: “The focus is specifcally on those leading an actor to choose one technical solution over another or to modify the responsibility of one actor regarding the technical system, and thus defne the fnal form of the system”. – A methodology and a tool for helping the actors to identify as early as possible the blocking constraints and the possible confguration(s) of the socio-energetic project that will allow the constraint to be relaxed and paths to be opened towards a potential solution. In other words, as the authors say, “Design decision support tools should not be used only to identify techno-economic optima but also to identify barriers and allow these to support negotiation between stakeholders”. Thus, “not only could the tool be used to pre-size the components of renewable energy production and sharing, but it could lead to the clarifcation of the rationales and constraints”.

Chapter E.2. Decision support for technical design of on-thespot renewable energy projects involving several stakeholders, by Fitó, Hodencq, Morriet, Ramousse, Wurtz and Debizet This chapter starts from the observation that design processes at the scale of energy communities are intrinsically multi-stakeholder, even more so if they address multi-energy projects, as is the waste heat recovery case, at the interface of electricity and thermal networks, presented in this chapter. Therefore, as the authors state, “This chapter proposes a methodology to facilitate the technical design of energy community projects involving multiple stakeholders, and potentially connected by intermediate aggregators”; “It focuses on how to implement future energy systems infuenced by multiple decision makers, typically producers and consumers in close proximity to each other”. The authors present a decision support methodology for selecting the technical design of a future energy system that will meet the expectations of all stakeholders involved in the investment. To reach this purpose, the chapter proposes some innovations. The frst is “an open-source tool facilitating the use of mixed-integer linear programming for energy systems design: by means of anticipatory simulation, this tool optimizes the use of equipment throughout a project’s lifespan”. The second is a multi-criteria analysis method putting forward a locally optimal design per stakeholder and criterion. The third and last innovation consists of a cross-analysis matrix and a multi-criteria radar, which represent overall performance and stakeholder convenience for each locally optimal design.

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This includes a wide range of quantitative criteria: energy, economy, exergy and environment, among others. The key point is again to allow dynamic interaction between the stakeholders and the results provided by the simulation and optimization tool. Two interesting suggestions from the authors should be highlighted: – An open-source approach: “open” here refers to the code and data of models, which can be freely accessed, used, modifed and shared by anyone for any purpose. It could be seen as a proposal to create a new commons concept, around design and modelling tools, besides the common of the energy system of the energy community itself, in the spirit fomented by the European Union guidelines on open access: as open as possible, as closed as necessary. The EU thus expresses the hope that the open-source approach contributes transparency, making way for collaboration and confdence in the offered solutions. – The introduction of exergy, with the extension toward a module on exergo-economic analysis, for attributing monetary costs to irreversibility within energy units, besides more classical money and energy objectives.

E.1 Proposal to take into account stakeholders’ motivations in models of optimization decision support tools Lou Morriet, Frédéric Wurtz and Gilles Debizet 1 Introduction: the emergence of energy communities and the need for a method for identifying infuential motivations and variables Nowadays, an increasing number of energy projects collect and share on-the-spot energy. Such projects entail the creation of local energy communities. Local authorities (La Branche, 2015; Debizet, 2016; Hampikian, 2017; Marquet, 2018; Aubert, 2020, Ramirez et al., 2020), citizens as inhabitants (Pappalardo and Debizet, 2019; Aubert, 2020) or as energy cooperative members (Assié, 2021), property developers (Marquet, 2018; Fonteneau, 2021) or electro-intensive industries (Morriet et al., 2018) join the historical energy actors to take part in the design of local energy projects. Thus, the design of energy projects is becoming a multi-stakeholder one. The complexity of the energy project leads stakeholders to use digital decision support tools to design the technical system, with the result that numerous simulation and optimization tools have been developed to help the developers in their task (Connolly et al., 2010; Ringkjøb, Haugan and Solbrekke, 2018; Pajot et al., 2019). Pajot highlights the interest in an optimization meta-modelling tool, such as OMEGAlpes (Pajot et al., 2019), Open Energy Modelling Framework (OEMOF) (Hilpert et al., 2018) or Calliope (Pfenninger et al., n.d.), as these offer the building bricks of a model which can be adapted to the diversity of projects. Furthermore, based on linear modelling, they offer a quick solution once the project is modelled. However, these tools are limited to economic and technical analysis. It is often the solution that least satisfes the most decisive stakeholders which is chosen, rather than the techno-economic optimum proposed by the tools. This is why, like other researchers such as Hinker et al. (2017) and Li, Trutnevyte and Strachan (2015), this team considers it necessary for decision support tools to go beyond the technical and economic aspects. This study advocates that decision support tools should explicitly model stakeholders’ choices. However, no model, whether demonstrating technical or socio-technical aspects, can represent the whole system. Thus, it is necessary to make

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296 Lou Morriet et al. choices for the model, and these choices should be explicit. From a technical stance, Pajot et al. (2019) show that it is essential to envisage the system management phase right from the design phase. From a socio-technical angle, local energy projects involve many types of actors: decision-makers, users, regulators and impacted actors, among others (Morriet, Debizet and Wurtz, 2019). Faced with a choice, this research has chosen to include in the model only the actors who have a substantial infuence on the nature and characteristics of the chosen solution (henceforth the “stakeholders”). Regarding the stakeholders, the researchers chose to focus on the reasons for transforming the technical project. The focus is specifcally on those leading an actor to choose one technical solution over another or to modify the responsibility of one actor regarding the technical system, and thus, defne the fnal form of the system. This chapter refers to these reasons as “infuential variables”. While some infuential variables are well known, such as minimizing costs or optimizing the performance of the energy system, choices made by stakeholders are not always what is expected or rational (Crozier and Friedberg, 2014). A detailed analysis is then necessary to identify the infuential variables. The frst part of the chapter presents the method used to identify the stakeholders and their infuential variables. The application of this method leads, in the second part, to the identifcation of infuential variables, based on a specifc energy project. The project in question is a photovoltaic energy-sharing initiative carried out by an energy community, initially formed as a participative housing community. The infuential variables identifed could therefore be considered as specifc to small energy communities. As models of optimization tools are defned on constraints and objectives, a distinction will be made between objectives and constraints, as well as those that can be modelled and those that cannot. This chapter does not present the elaboration of the model library. The third part of the chapter returns to the impact of these variables on the design of the project.

2 Methodology for identifying stakeholder infuential variables As previously stated, a detailed analysis is considered necessary to identify the infuential variables. Methodologies developed and used in social sciences were applied to perform this work. In this section, the methodology for identifying infuential variables is presented, focusing frstly on the reasons for working with qualitative surveys. The choice of the feld is then specifed and fnally, the analysis approach, based on the re-analysis of interviews and monographs, is introduced.

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 297 2.1 The use of qualitative surveys Qualitative and quantitative surveys are methodologies proposed in social science with the aim of analysing an object of study. The qualitative survey seems more appropriate since it seeks to identify and not quantify. Bréchon (2011) specifes that qualitative surveys consist of interviewing a small number of people, who express themselves for a long while via an interview. These interviews can be directive, semi-directive or non-directive, depending on the researcher’s objective. Thus, the interviewee answers specifc questions or broader ones depending on the chosen methodology. Working on the design of energy projects, the interviewees mainly express themselves on the design process, detailing their understanding and analysis of the project. These interviews allow for the analysis of the relationships between the project stakeholders and the logic for their actions in the decision-making process, among other aspects. 2.2 Choice of feld and materials This work required the identifcation of a feld meeting its criteria. For this chapter, the objects of study are energy projects collecting and sharing on-the-spot energy, conducted by an energy community. It was decided to work on a photovoltaic energy-sharing project run by an energy community initially formed as a participative housing community. The project includes 11 households and is located in Forcalquier in the south of France. This project was studied via qualitative surveys conducted by researchers in the framework of two research projects. These include the dissertation of Flora Aubert, an urban planning researcher, on energy communities and the “Ordinary Urban Factory” (Aubert, 2020), and several unpublished documents collected by scientists of Eco-SESA Smart Energies in Districts: Gilles Debizet, Thibaut Fonteneau, Lou Morriet, Marta Pappalardo and Melike Yalcin-Riollet.1 The materials are different in both the cases: – From the case of Flora Aubert’s PhD dissertation, we use the monograph supplemented by analysis. Members of the participative project, including the project architect, the electricity supplier, the electrician and the electricity distribution network manager have been interviewed. – From the Eco-SESA project, to which this research belongs, semi-structured interviews with members of the participative project, including the project architect, are used. In both the cases, the interviews were conducted after the technical system had been implemented.

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2.3 Re-analysis of interviews and analysis based on a monograph The two bodies of material are therefore very different. Unlike the interviews, the monograph produced by Flora Aubert offers analysis by the author to which only a few verbatims extracted from the interviews are added. However, the addition of the two bodies of material opens up a broader perspective on the research question: the identifcation of stakeholders and their infuential variables. Furthermore, since the interviews were not conducted by the researchers, the re-analysis reveals that many parts are not explicitly related to the subject, namely, the design of the technical system, and even less its infuential variables. The analysis of these two materials has been carried out with the qualitative data analysis software, Nvivo. The aim was to identify the stakeholders as well as their infuential variables linked to the energy project (see Figure E1.1). Identifying stakeholders is essential for several reasons. Neglecting a stakeholder in the model means failing to take into account their vision of the project and consequently their constraints and objectives. This implies that the proposed project will certainly not suit this stakeholder, who might therefore seek to stop the project. One interest of the interviews is that they can bring to light new stakeholders, not initially foreseen, who play or will play a role in the decision-making process. As previously mentioned, among the infuential variables identifed, this research focused on those that can be modelled rather than those that cannot be linked to the constraints and objectives of the stakeholders. To model an infuential variable, this must be quantifable. However, as will be seen, while non-quantitative infuential variables cannot be mathematically or quantitatively modelled, they can play an equally important role. For this reason, it seems essential to identify these variables too. 2.4 Identifcation of project stakeholders Previous research led the authors to differentiate two types of stakeholders: energy system operators and regulator actors, and to identify internal sub-categories (Morriet, Debizet and Wurtz, 2019). Operators manage a socio-energy node, in other words, a set of elements which collects, converts and/or distributes energy, constructed (or managed) by a decision-making actor in interaction with actants (Debizet et al., 2016). The infuence of operators’ decisions is therefore restricted to a socio-energy node, which is essential to identify as well. Sharing on-the-spot renewable production requires the linking of buildings, public networks and natural or waste energy resources, such as solar radiation, aqua/geothermal heat, industrial waste heat, wood fuel, among others. Therefore, an energy intermediary (Debizet and Tabourdeau, 2018) between these three kinds of actants usually aggregates the local production to distribute it: this intermediary must deal with

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 299 each one, or at least take them into account: consumers, other possible producers, potential prosumers and distribution network operators. Each of these actors operates a socio-energy node, and the set of these nodes shape the local energy system. An (production and/or sharing) OREP introduces new artefacts within one or several socio-energy node(s), while also modifying the relation to connected socio-energy nodes. Both OREP operators and connected operators should therefore be considered stakeholders of the project. Regulatory actors impose rules on the whole socio-technical system, which shape the link between socio-energy nodes and their associated operators (Debizet et al., 2016; Aubert and Souami, 2021). External authorities of the project (such as local authorities) are often involved in the OREP (La Branche, 2015; Debizet, 2016; Hampikian, 2017; Marquet, 2018; Aubert, 2020, Ramirez-Cobo, Tribout and Debizet, 2021). 2.5 Defnition of constraints and objectives We defne a quantitative constraint as a link (in the form of an equation) that narrows the range of possible and possibilities of quantitative values for the energy system. Although the analysis is not automatic, terms linked to the notion of constraint in the corpus analysed are “constraint”, “choice criterion”, “must”, “respect”, “require” and “need”, among others. The constraints identifed will be those carried by the actors. In techno-economic models, physical and defnition constraints are modelled as well as technical ones, and linked to the chosen technical systems. “Physical constraint” means, for instance, ensuring that the energy is conserved. “Defnition constraint” refers to a computational constraint, such as calculating the total energy as the sum of the powers at each timestep. Finally, a “technical constraint” is understood as the fact that a power plant cannot reach its rated power immediately, but in a given time. The proposed methodology does not aim to identify these constraints in local energy projects. A “quantitative objective” is defned as the orientation (maximum or minimum) of an optimization variable tending to move the calculated convergence point within the solution space. Terms linked to the notion of “objective” may include: “objective”, “ambition”, “principle”, “strategy”, “interest”, “maximize”, “minimize”, “reduce”, “wish”, “want”, “prefer”, “seek to”, “try to” and “aim to”, among others.

3 Results of the analysis for an energy community project This section presents the application of the above-described methodology. In the frst sub-section, the stakeholders of the project are identifed and it is seen how they ft into the above categories. In the second part, the associated infuential variables are presented.

300 Lou Morriet et al. 3.1 Identifcation of project actors The frst step is to identify the actors involved in the local energy project. To do this, it is necessary to identify all the actors and identify among them those who have a substantial infuence on the defnition of the project. Within the framework of this local energy project, the following operator actors can be identifed: – The owners or tenants of the 11 dwellings of the participative housing project, as consumers. Their socio-energy node is restricted to the energy consumption devices installed in the dwellings. – The energy community, as prosumer. The community takes common decisions. The socio-energy node operated by the community is made up of both consumption devices (the commons) and production devices (photovoltaic panels planned to be installed in front of the windows). – The public electricity distribution network operator. The socio-energy node operated is the public electricity distribution network up to the meter of the houses. This actor must guarantee that the network can ensure the consumption of the network’s subscribers at all times. This energy layer can be associated with the corresponding digital layer for data collection, from the injection to the supply of the subscribers through the public grid. – The electricity supplier, the interface between consumers and producers. The socio-energy node of this actor corresponds to the energy fows between the power plants and the household meters. The supplier must guarantee the supply at all times, enabling consumption by its subscribers. Associated to this is also the digital layer from injection in the public network to the supply of the subscribers for data processing, and vice versa in the case of local energy production. This socio-energy node is therefore superimposed on the network operator’s node. The producers do not take part in this project because the production facilities are totally external and independent of the project. The supplier acts as the interface between the producer and the project. There is no aggregator in this project as the energy produced locally is recovered by the supplier. The regulatory actors are the following: – The city council as the local authority. In this project, the city council participates through the local urban plan. The city council is also the owner of the local public electricity network, but delegates its management to the distribution system operator, Enedis. The city council did not take part in the design of the technical system. – The French State and the European Union as external authorities via laws and decrees on the energy subject.

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 301 In addition to these regulatory actors, there are also “regulation guarantor” actors, whose role is to check that the constraints imposed by the regulations (the actors or actants) are taken into account. These actors are the following: – Consuel,2 the French national committee for the security of electricity users, whose role is to certify the conformity of electrical installations, which is mandatory in new dwellings. – The electrician, who acts as an advisor for the design of the technical system. As a service provider, the electrician seeks to satisfy the customers while respecting the regulatory framework. Other actors are mentioned in the monograph and the interviews but are not directly involved in the local energy project. We therefore do not consider them as “stakeholders” of the project. The following would therefore not be modelled: – The architect of the project, who does not take part in the design of the energy project. However, as a resident of the participative housing project, her infuential variables will be studied as a consumer or via the community. – The organization proposing the BDM label (for “Bâtiments Durables Méditerranéens”, a French label for environmental quality)3 which has been considered to design the house project. As it is only a label and not a regulation, there is no obligation. Thus, it is the community who will decide whether or not to apply for this label. – The Hespul organization4 and the TECSOL5 and ENERPLAN6 companies, which inform on the electricity network use rate. They only play the role of informants. – The legal entity, which must be legally constituted in the framework of a collective self-consumption project, but which does not take decisions as one entity. Decisions are taken through the different entities that comprise it, namely, as mentioned above, the members of the participative housing project and the supplier. 3.2 Selection of stakeholders As a reminder, we consider “stakeholders” only those actors who have a substantial infuence on the nature and characteristics of the chosen solution, whether in the design or management phase. Thus, only the following parties are considered stakeholders: the owners or tenants of the dwellings as consumers, the community as prosumer, the electricity public network operator and the supplier, with the French State and the European Union as external authorities via laws and decrees. These stakeholders can then be modelled on the basis of their associated quantitative infuential variables.

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3.3 Identifcation of infuential variables Once the stakeholders are identifed, their “infuential variables” are pinpointed, in other words, the reasons for the stakeholders’ decisions regarding the energy project. A total of 58 references of infuential variables related to the energy system were identifed. Some infuential variables may be repeated several times. Table E1.1 presents some identifed infuential variables, based on extracts from interviews or the monograph. As an example, at least one infuential variable per actor is presented. As indicated in the methodology, not all the infuential variables can be modelled and are not intended to be. The identifcation has focused on those that are intended to be modelled in an optimization meta-modeller, mentioning the quantitative indicator. The interviews and the monograph highlight many other infuential variables but these were not selected because they were not related to the energy project. As will be seen in the next section, infuential variables can play a key role in the design of the technical system assemblage. It can thus be explained why an actor will choose one socio-technical assemblage over another, or reject an assemblage for the project.

4 Impact of infuential variables on project design The case study seeks to highlight the impact of infuential variables on the design of an energy-sharing project within an energy community. This section underscores how the shape of a project is defned and transformed by the stakeholders’ objectives and constraints. The frst part examines the frst assemblage considered in consideration of the objective. However, not all the associated constraints are respected. The second and third parts describe two options available if a project is over-constrained: relaxing the constraint to keep the same assemblage or changing to an assemblage which respects the constraints. 4.1 Initial objective of the project leader In this project, the main objective of the community was to maximize self-consumption. A frst assemblage was considered by the community: a direct self-consumption project (Assemblage 1, see Figure E1.2). With this system, local production from photovoltaic panels, owned by the community, would be directly redistributed to the communal areas and the dwellings. Connection to the grid would ensure the electrical balance if the local production was over or under the electricity consumption. Only one subscription to the public grid was considered for all the types of consumption. However, there is a legal constraint (Table E1.1 - constraint 3) forbidding the use of a single common meter for multiple dwellings. Aubert (2020) explains: “Invoking the supplier’s need for free choice, and thus the illegality

Examples of non-modellable inf uential variable

Consumer: community => Objective 2: direct self-consumption “At f rst, we wanted to have only one delivery point to self-consume directly” (Interview 01)

Consumer: e.g. dwelling 1

Stakeholder

(Continued)

=> Constraint 1: ensure the economic balance considering the local electricity production

min(˜t local _ production(t ) − consumption(t ) )

=> Objective 1: minimize external energy inputs “And afterwards, you need energy, you produce it locally and renewably. The local aspect, for me, is really in the transition aspect, [in the sense of] transition movement, you know, not the energy transition but the movement of transitions, in that aspect. Produce locally in order to be less dependent on what comes from outside, that’s also an important element.” (Interview 02) Modelling example: min(˜t network _ production(t )) The proposal of this equation of minimizing the energy production from the network over time is compliant with the expressed wish of the stakeholder. => Objective 3: maximize self-consumption “The project embodies several principles that go beyond energy considerations: intergenerational mix, decision-making by consent, low ecological footprint on several issues - water, waste, land, materials, landscape, energy consumption (blog [of the project], visited 06/19). The f rst step towards energy autonomy is to design very low energy housing. Then, the objective is to produce the remaining energy mostly on site.” (Aubert 2020) “Meeting the desire [] to self-consume as much as possible. This needed a lot of work” (Aubert 2020) Modelling example:

Example of modellable inf uential variable

Table E1.1 Examples of non-modellable and modellable infuential variable emerging from stakehloders

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 303

Examples of non-modellable inf uential variable

=> Constraint 2: necessity to have a balance manager “That was important for [the electricity public network operator], as you are reinjecting into the grid, to have a balance manager...” (Interview 01)

Stakeholder

Electricity public network operator

=> Objective 4: minimize over-costs of local electricity production “The legal and economic frameworks regarding grid rates in collective self-consumption projects were not yet clear at the time of the implementation of the electrical installations [of the participative project]. That is why [the community has] looked for a way to decrease the quantity of electricity going through the grid and to increase the quantity self-consumed. To avoid paying a possibly over-expensive electricity network use rate – ‘we felt that it was going to be average’ – [the community] found a solution to optimize the self-consumption” (Aubert 2020) Modelling example: min(˜t local _ production _ costs (t ))

˜t local _ production _ costs(t ) = ˜t local _ production _ income (t )

“At f rst, we wanted to have only one delivery point to selfconsume directly. Indeed, when they told us, ‘No, everyone must have their own device [delivery point], you’re going to go through the network and you’re going to give us taxes’, so we said ‘oh my’ this could actually jeopardize our economic balance.” (Interview 01) Modelling example:

Example of modellable inf uential variable

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Examples of non-modellable influential variable

=> Objective 6: improve its knowledge on collective self-consumption “Indeed, according to an interview with the supplier, the project [...] represented their first case of collective selfconsumption, to ‘get their hands dirty’, and then be able to develop a full commercial offer (interview with the electricity supplier, 03/05/18)” (Aubert 2020) => Constraint 3: one delivery point per dwelling “Since these are dwellings, it is necessary to have one meter per dwelling, so that each consumer (i.e. household unit) can freely choose its electricity supplier. (...) We observe here that a first non-human actant, a European law on the electricity market, gives rise to a first technical change in the previously constituted assemblage.” (Aubert 2020)

Stakeholder

Electricity supplier

Example of modellable influential variable

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools  305

306 Lou Morriet et al. Definition of the corpus

Extraction of constraints and objectives from the interviews of the participants or observers

Monography and interviews

Synthesis

Maths reformulation

Treatment

? Interviews of persons who participated or observed the project Analyses from F. Aubert’s thesis & verbatims

?

Actor type A

?

Influential variable ?

Summary grouping objectives & constraints by type of actor

Treatment

?

Model library

Models of quantitative constraints and objectives associated with types of stakeholders

type B type C

Covered in this chapter

Figure E1.1 Analysis methodology to identify stakeholders and the infuential variables Source: Author.

Legend Energy flow Production unit Consumption unit Community Household Network Operator & Supplier Regulator Socio-energy node

PV panels

Communal areas

Community

… European law Network Consumption Network Production

Public Network Operator & supplier

Figure E1.2 Assemblage 1: Direct self-consumption Source: Author.

of the project, [the operator of the public electricity network] did not accept the installation as proposed. Twelve metering points were therefore created: eleven for the dwellings and one for the communal areas. There must be one meter per dwelling so that each consumer (or dwelling unit) can freely choose its electricity supplier. To avoid being blocked at this step of the project [the community] did not continue in this direction: We dealt with the constraints [of the electricity distribution network operator]” (Interview 1, 18 April 2018). We observe here that a frst non-human actant, a European law on the electricity market, gives rise to a frst technical change in the envisaged assemblage (Aubert, 2020). Even if it is the distribution system

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 307 operator who points out the problem, it is still a constraint imposed by the regulations as indicated by Aubert (2020). 4.2 Change of assemblage The change of assemblage is highlighted in Aubert’s PhD dissertation (2020). The constraint no longer allows the direct self-consumption assemblage. A new assemblage is then proposed by the public electricity network operator: an electricity collective self-consumption project (Assemblage 2, see Figure E1.3). Collective self-consumption, allowed since April 2017, is the possibility of exchanging electricity locally but only via the electricity distribution network (Fonteneau, 2021). Concretely, this implies a modifcation of the assemblage taking into account a delivery point per dwelling (D) as well as a delivery point for the communal areas to which the photovoltaic panels are connected in direct self-consumption. While electricity surplus is reinjected into the public network via the delivery point of these communal areas, one part - corresponding to the actual consumption of the dwellings - is considered as supplying the delivery points of the dwellings. The electricity network use rate is applied to this surplus. However, as this solution could jeopardize the economic balance of local energy production (Table E1.1, constraint 1), it was also rejected. A member of the community explains: In fact, when they told us, ‘No, everyone must have their own device [delivery point], you’re going to go through the network and you’re going to give us taxes’, so we said ‘oh, my’ this could actually jeopardize our economic balance. That’s why we put the hot water tanks on the communal building. (Interview 01) A third assemblage was then considered (Assemblage 3, Figure E1.4). The direct self-consumption of the communal areas also includes the individual hot water tanks (HWT). The principle of collective self-consumption is nonetheless kept for the surplus of the direct self-consumption. 4.3 Relaxation of constraints However, this assemblage still did not meet the constraint of ensuring the economic balance of local energy production as the level of the electricity network use rate remains uncertain. This constraint was therefore transformed into an objective, which was to minimize additional costs related to energy production. As an objective, this infuential variable guided the fnal solution of the project without constraining it. The objective guided the management of the technical system in the same direction as maximizing direct self-consumption, since the latter has no associated taxes.

308 Lou Morriet et al. Legend Energy flow Production unit Consumption unit Community Household Network Operator & Supplier Regulator Socio-energy node

Communal areas

PV panels

Community

D1

D2

D3

D4

…

European law Network Consumption

Public Network Operator & supplier

Network Production

Figure E1.3 Assemblage 2: Collective self-consumption + direct consumption for communal areas Source: Author, based on the work of Aubert (2020).

Legend Energy flow Production unit Consumption unit Community Household Network Operator & Supplier Regulator Socio-energy node

Communal areas

PV panels

HWT1

HWT2

HWT3

HWT4

D3

D4

Community

L D1

D2

…

European law Network Consumption Network Production

Public Network Operator & supplier

Figure E1.4 Assemblage 3: Collective self-consumption + direct consumption for communal areas and hot water tanks Source: Author, based on the work of Aubert (2020).

Three energy assemblages were therefore considered successively (Aubert, 2020). The community initially chose to have a direct self-consumption project (Assemblage 1, Figure E1.2), which became a collective electric self-consumption project with direct self-consumption only for the communal areas (Assemblage 2, Figure E1.3). They fnally ended up with a collective self-consumption project with direct self-consumption for the communal areas and hot water tanks (Assemblage 3, Figure E1.4). As shown in Figure E1.5, the proposed assemblages do not have associated solutions, due to the constraints imposed by the regulator or operator

Modelling stakeholders in design support tools 309 Legend Assemblage Actor Main constraints Main objectives Proposition Exists Does not exist Is changed by

Law

Need for one delivery point per dwelling

Community Maximize selfconsumption

Direct self-consumption

solution Collective Self-consumption + Direct self-consumption for communal areas

Community

Ensure economic balance considering the local production

solution Electrical collective self-consumption + Direct selfconsumption for communal areas and hot water tanks

solution

Community

Minimize overcosts of the local production

solutions

Figure E1.5 Evolution of the assemblage according to the infuential variables Source: Author, based on the work of Aubert (2020).

actors. This type of infuential variable can therefore stop a project if the constraints are not compatible with each other. To unblock the project, it is necessary to make compromises by relaxing the constraints or by transforming the socio-technical assemblage. In this context, the design decision support tools must not only seek a techno-economic optimum but also ensure that there are solutions if the constraints are relaxed or a new assemblage is proposed. It is therefore essential to be able to highlight the points that block the project, to enable negotiations between the stakeholders.

5 Conclusion This chapter seeks to contribute to the design of energy projects by collecting and sharing on-the-spot energy. The complexity of energy projects leads actors to use decision support tools to design projects. However, these tools focus only on technical and economic issues while the stakeholders play an essential role in the design of the projects - a factor eluded in the tools. This chapter proposes to complement the modelling proposed in the decision support tools, by adding to the model libraries the stakeholders’ “infuential variables” in the form of constraints and objectives. Stakeholders are defned as actors who have a substantial infuence on the nature and characteristics of the chosen solution. The infuential variables are the reasons, held by the stakeholders of a project, that defne the fnal shape of the system. This chapter is based on a photovoltaic energy-sharing project carried out by an energy community initially grouped around a participative-housing project. As the assemblages are based on common technical systems and recurrent stakeholders (such as the public electricity network operator and households), it is relevant to propose actor-typical models for design decision

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support tool. The models will be based on the modelling of stakeholders and their modellable infuential variables, as identifed above. As a result, stakeholders will be able to select the constraints and objectives corresponding to their aspirations and model a more complete energy project. In this project, the design decision support tool intervenes rather late because the constraints of the stakeholders transform the assemblage. However, upstream of a substantial investment or a long-term commitment, it may be necessary for the actors to use design decision support tools to check whether there are solutions for the considered assemblages and, if not, to identify the constraints blocking the project. In other words, design decision support tools should not be used only to identify techno-economic optima but also to identify barriers and allow these to support negotiation between stakeholders. Not only could this tool be used to pre-size the components of renewable energy production and sharing, but it could lead to the clarifcation of the rationales and constraints among stakeholders and, in so doing, lay the foundations of energy-sharing rules within a burgeoning energy community. However, it would not be suffcient to completely defne these rules. On the one hand, they may depend on technical solutions chosen downstream of the pre-design and, on the other hand, the spatial practices of energy often differ from those imagined when the technical system was designed and require community governance capable of adapting rules to practices.

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to La Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for their fnancial support through the OREBE project (Optimisation holistique des Réseaux d’Energie et des Bâtiments producteurs d’énergies dans les Eco-quartiers). They are also grateful to the ADEME (the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management) for their fnancial support through the RETHINE project (Réseaux Electriques et THermiques InterconNEctés). This work has been partially supported by the CDP EcoSESA receiving funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR: Agence Nationale de la Recherche) in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02).

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312 Lou Morriet et al. Grenoble Alpes (ComUE). https://www.theses.fr/2018GREAE006 [Accessed 2 February 2022]. Morriet, L., Debizet, G. and Wurtz, F. (2019). Multi-actor modelling for MILP energy systems optimisation: Application to collective self-consumption. In Building Simulation. Rome. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02285965. Morriet, L., Pajot, C., Delinchant, B., Wurtz, F., Maréchal, Y., Benjamin, V. and Debray, F. (2018). Optimisation multi-acteurs appliquée à la valorisation de chaleur fatale d’un acteur industriel fexible. In IBPSA. Bordeaux. https://www. conftool.net/ibpsa2018/index.php?page=browseSessions&form_session=21. Pajot, C., Morriet, L., Hodencq, S., Delinchant, B., Maréchal, Y., Wurtz, F. and Reinbold, V. (2019). An optimization modeler as an effcient tool for design and operation for city energy stakeholders and decision makers. In Building Simulation. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02285954. Pfenninger, S., Pickering, B., Tröndle, T., Garchery, M., Hawker, G. and Lombardi, F. (n. d.). Calliope - a multi-scale energy systems modelling framework. Calliope 0.6.5 Documentation. https://calliope.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ [Accessed 5 June 2020]. Ramirez-Cobo, I., Tribout, S. and Debizet, G. (2021). Articulation et dépendances entre conceptions urbaine et énergétique. Espaces et sociétés (Paris, France). https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03194123 [Accessed 8 May 2021]. Ringkjøb, H-K., Haugan, P.M. and Solbrekke, I.-M. (2018). A review of modelling tools for energy and electricity systems with large shares of variable renewables. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 96 (November), 440–459. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.08.002.

Notes 1 See https://ecosesa.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/research-fronts/interactions-modelingbetween-buildings-and-with-grids-in-a-district/. 2 See https://www.consuel.com/. 3 See https://www.envirobatbdm.eu/la-demarche-bdm. 4 See https://www.enerplan.asso.fr. 5 See http://www.tecsol.fr/. 6 See https://www.hespul.org/fr/.

E.2 Decision support for technical design of on-the-spot renewable energy projects involving several stakeholders Jaume Fitó, Sacha Hodencq, Lou Morriet, Julien Ramousse, Frédéric Wurtz and Gilles Debizet 1 Introduction Much of the literature focuses on what actions are recommendable for future energy communities, and why these actions are relevant. This chapter focuses on how to implement them. More precisely, it focuses on how to implement future energy systems infuenced by multiple decision-makers. The authors present a decision support methodology for selecting the technical design of a prospective energy system that will meet the expectations of all stakeholders involved in the investment. The remainder of this introduction justifes the cardinal points of the authors’ methodology: (1) the need for decision support methodologies; (2) the appropriateness of multi-stakeholder approaches; (3) the advantages of multi-criteria assessment; (4) the decision to develop open-source tools and (5) the application of mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). Section 2 describes the two pillars of this chapter: (1) the open-source OMEGAlpes decision tool and (2) the multi-stakeholder iterative decision procedure built around OMEGAlpes. Section 3 illustrates the use of OMEGAlpes and the iterative methodology with an example of the authors’ recent work in the feld of industrial waste heat recovery through urban district heating. 1.1 Why decision support? The struggle against climate change is one of the major challenges of our century. Reducing the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions linked to human activity appears as an essential mission. More than 70% of global emissions are the result of energy use (Climate Watch, 2018). As a result, the question of how to decarbonize our energy consumption is a key issue, both in research and society. While urban areas account for about 64% of global primary energy use (International Energy Agency, 2016), the development of low-carbon, decentralized renewable energies and energy recovery, as well as citizen and community involvement for low-carbon transition, suggests that cities will be the next place for decarbonized energy production. These low-carbon DOI: 10.4324/9781003257547-21

314 Jaume Fitó et al. energy sources, coupled with suffciency and effciency measures, bring about new challenges and promising solutions, among which: •

• •

Intermittence of the sources, and by extension of the production, especially for wind and solar production. Flexibility strategies, energy storage or the exploitation of synergies within multi-carrier energy systems are approaches that can manage such intermittence. Local energy generation and management, which implies the need for well-designed and well-operated public energy networks and microgrids. Energy intermediaries between production and consumption (Debizet and Tabourdeau, 2018) such as prosumers, energy communities, investment or operating actors or just an innovative agreement.

As a result, the energy models that enable citizens, local authorities and researchers to understand energy systems are becoming increasingly complex when it comes to energy transition. The above considerations raise the following question: “How can we design an energy project to fnd optimal solutions from the technical, economic and environmental angles?” One way to help stakeholders answer this question is to develop decision support tools, from design to operation, to solve such complex problems effciently and optimally. The tools convey technical constraints and optimisation processes, to actors involved in energy projects but who are not necessarily energy experts. 1.2 Why a multi-stakeholder approach? In addition to technical, economic and environmental issues, the consideration of stakeholders in energy projects is another challenge that should be taken into account. For example, new actors such as local authorities, who increasingly manage local energy resources, or citizens involved in a movement to re-appropriate energy. Thus, on-the-spot energy projects involve different stakeholders. At the very least, there are the consumers, who could become prosumers (producer and consumer) as individuals or collectively as a community, whose role has been reinforced with recent European acknowledgement (European Parliament, 2019). Building owners, as well as industries and high-energy consumers, can also take part as local producers. In addition, historical energy actors are still involved in energy projects. This preliminary list shows that there is a diversity of stakeholders in this kind of energy project. This leads to a diversity of points of view, which will give rise to different expected shapes and different expected operations for the project. On-the-spot energy projects therefore should be considered as multi-stakeholder projects with technical and social issues. These stakeholders should be able to share their vision of the project and discuss the solutions, which is why research needs to explore how to help them make decisions on energy projects, based on socio-technical

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 315 considerations. This chapter investigates such a process, offering digital decision support tools. There are two interesting paths of exploration: integrating diversity in the models (Li, Trutnevyte and Strachan, 2015) to help these in the formulation of the problem, or integrating diversity in the analysis. This chapter focuses on the latter. 1.3 Why multi-criteria analysis? In mono-stakeholder energy projects, a variety of criteria may pose problems. If these criteria suggest divergent solutions, there is a decision to make, which is always time-consuming. Thus, stakeholders who do not need to collaborate may want to focus simply on one or two criteria. However, when a project is multi-stakeholder, a multi-criteria approach is advantageous as it can bridge the gaps between stakeholders; more criteria mean more opportunities for agreement. The tool presented in this chapter integrates multi-criteria algorithms to show the various solutions (resulting from several criteria) open to stakeholders, along with their impact on the project. The development of decision support methodologies (see Section 1.1) based on multi-criteria analysis is a new feld of research. Dénarié et al. (2019) suggested an innovative methodology based on multi-criteria decision analysis, seeking to cope with several uncertainties related to input data quality (a common issue in industrial projects). Its practical application was illustrated by a case study in Milan, Italy. Multi-criteria analyses are used more frequently in modern projects to exploit on-the-spot renewable sources. For example, Ghafghazi et al. (2010) evaluated different types of district heating options through multi-criteria analysis. Possible solutions included renewable sources such as geothermal heat, biomass and sewer heat recovery. Furthermore, they demonstrated that appropriate communication between stakeholders could signifcantly change the fnal design because of consensus. The authors of this chapter suggest that multi-criteria analysis is a support for such consensus, as is also proven by literature. Ajah et al. (2007), for example, analysed the technical, economic, institutional and environmental feasibility of a robust district heating system driven by industrial waste heat, with the recycling of residential heat after end-user utilization. The institutional criterion is worth pointing out as it demonstrates that not all criteria need to be quantitative in such assessments. In addition to the above-mentioned technical criteria, the authors of this chapter encourage engineers to include the exergy criterion in their analyses. They themselves have applied this criterion successfully in their own research studies, as well as the less common exergo-economic criterion. This was particularly evident in the case study presented in Section 3 (Fitó et al., 2020a; 2020b; 2020c) that will exemplify the use of our methodology in a district heating project using industrial waste heat recovery. Several other studies in the literature apply this criterion. For instance, Woolley,

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Luo and Simeone (2018) proposed a four-step decision support procedure for industrial decision-makers, based on exergy balances and temporal availability, to identify opportunities for waste heat recovery within their processes. Dorotić, Pukšec and Duić (2019) carried out a multi-objective optimization of district heating systems through exergy, environmental and economic indicators, where exergy offered a different solution compared to the other criteria. Baldvinsson and Nakata (2014) compared the monetary costs, exergy effciency and exergo-economic costs of a renewable, wastedriven heat supply system with those of the current paradigm in Japan. 1.4 Why open-source? While historical energy system modelling as well as the current mainstream approaches are closed and proprietary, open-energy modelling has a promising emergence (Pfenninger et al., 2018). “Open” here refers to the code and data of models, which can be freely accessed, used, modifed and shared by anyone for any purpose (Open Knowledge Foundation, 2015). OMEGAlpes was developed to be part of this emerging open-energy modelling movement, which has raised substantial interest. First, open-energy models are accessible in terms of both fnancial and knowledge. Research can be adapted and extended to complex new energy systems in every region of the world. Adoption barriers are lower, compared to conventional proprietary solutions (Bazilian et al., 2012). Moreover, open and reproducible research allows methods and quantitative work to be shared with policy makers (Pfenninger et al., 2017), as institutions increasingly call for transparency and open science practices in Europe and worldwide (Glinos, 2019; BMBF, 2020; UNESCO, 2020). The outcomes of energy system studies are often used to shape energy policies affecting the public. Openness provides trust and legitimacy for scientifc arguments in public debates over the energy transition (Morrison, 2018) and enables citizen involvement (Barnes, 2010), which is essential to achieve successful energy transition projects. Generally speaking, open-energy modelling practices improve the quality of science by reducing duplicated efforts and facilitating peer review, thus preventing errors (Pfenninger et al., 2017), biases (Morrison, 2018) and even fraud. Such practices also improve collaboration between all contributing parties, as well as the comprehensibility of studies (Cao et al., 2016). In the energy sector, a variety of stakeholders can be gathered around accessible models. Finally, open-energy modelling tools achieve a quality comparable to proprietary solutions, in addition to meeting high standards and levels of maintainability (Bazilian et al., 2012). Remaining challenges persist in obtaining the functionalities of closed-source tools, especially regarding optimization solvers (Morrison, 2018). One should note that OMEGAlpes enables users to choose from a variety of solvers, from the free, open-source CBC solver to more effcient proprietary solutions, such as Gurobi or Cplex.

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 317 1.5 Why mixed-integer linear programming (MILP)? Two spaces can be distinguished in the feld of physical system modelling, and in particular energy modelling: •

The dynamic simulation space, where the temporal evolution of the physical system is described systematically by differential equations and state variables. In this space, the operation of the system is imposed in its parametrization; the aim is to produce a quality physical simulation that describes the real behaviour of the system.

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The optimization space, where the physical system is described in the form of an optimization problem through objectives and constraints, due to optimization variables and fxed parameters. The purpose in such a space is to determine the operation and/or the sizing of the physical system. In this space, a multitude of possible solutions to the optimization problem is explored.

In the latter, a consequential number of variables are involved due to the study of spatial and temporal scales, especially in the early stages of projects, when most of the variables are not settled. While many variables are continuous, integer variables are needed for the formulation of typical constraints, i.e., each time the state of a system (on/off, high/low, charge/discharge) must be constrained. In the preliminary study phases, it is more relevant to use a macroscopic model, capable of handling a large number of variables and providing a solution to the problem. Models without excessive physical complexity should be used to transcribe the functioning of the system while limiting the parametrization of the model, hence its overall uncertainty. MILP enables a large number of variables to be explored with linear programming while providing binaries to represent discrete states of physical systems for problem formulation. It is thus well suited for the design and operation of energy projects in the early stages. Some recent studies, like that of Oluleye and Smith (2016), considered mixed-integer linear programming for optimizations. In the case of the cited study, it was used for waste heat exploitation within a processing site by means of thermodynamic cycles.

2 Proposed tools and method 2.1 OMEGAlpes: open-source decision support tool 2.1.1 General description OMEGAlpes (Hodencq et al., 2021a; Pajot, 2019) stands for Optimization ModEls Generation As Linear Programs for Energy Systems. It is a linear optimization tool designed to easily generate multi-carrier energy system

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models. Its purpose is to assist in developing district energy projects by helping to generate MILP optimization models for design and operation in pre-study phases. The tool is based on an intuitive and extensible object-oriented library, and aims to allow various energy study cases to be considered, taking into account stakeholders’ constraints and objectives while focusing on optimization. OMEGAlpes is free and open source: it was developed in the G2Elab with the Apache 2.0 licence (Apache Software Foundation, 2004), in collaboration with two other French laboratories, namely, PACTE and LOCIE. Thus, the source code has been versioned and documented (Delinchant et al., 2021), and is directly available on a Gitlab repository (OMEGAlpes Gitlab, 2021). The models are modifable to lead to various optimization solutions, depending on users’ assumptions, objectives and constraints. The users can also enter and distribute their results, contributing to the open code development and making way for scientifc reproducibility in the energy feld. One of the aims of OMEGAlpes is to avoid the creation of an optimization model for each study case by using the concept of model-driven architecture (MDA). This approach is used in software development to switch between a very high level of abstraction to specifc models (Kleppe, Warmer and Bast, 2003). High abstraction levels are more related to human understanding and can sometimes be represented with diagrams. Regarding MILP energy optimization, the very high level of abstraction corresponds to the formulation of study cases on energy systems, by assembling models incorporating an equation-based formulation, typically via object-oriented programming. One such example would be maximizing the self-consumption rate for a district equipped with PV panels. Low levels of abstraction, on the other hand, correspond more to constraint formulation, where the optimization problem is described in its most elementary form for the solver, i.e., in the form of constraints (columns of matrices). 2.1.2 Structure and main features OMEGAlpes was written in Python, an open-source and widely used highlevel programming language. Moreover, Python supports object-oriented programming, a crucial feature for the construction of multiple abstraction layers. An optimization problem must be translated into a specifc language to be understood by an optimization solver. To do so, OMEGAlpes uses the PuLP package, a “linear programming toolkit for Python”, focusing on supporting linear and mixed-integer models (Mitchell, O’Sullivan and Dunning, 2011). The OMEGAlpes library relies on the MDA concept by creating high-abstraction classes from elementary objects. For example, the low-abstraction object Unit enables the creation of the high-abstraction class HeatPump. First, the general sub-package provides all the classes needed to generate an optimization model. In particular, it includes Unit, which is defned to

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 319 represent the elementary object of an optimization problem. A Unit is a set of three optimization elements: • • •

Quantity defnes a decision variable or a parameter Objective defnes an objective (the objective of the optimization problem will be the sum of all objectives) Constraint defnes a constraint, distinguished in three exclusive types: • DefnitionConstraint for imposed mathematical relation constraints, which may be physical. They are used to calculate and defne quantities, or to represent physical phenomena • TechnicalConstraint models a constraint which is linked to technical issues • ActorConstraint models a constraint caused by actor decisions

The energy package gathers all the models used in OMEGAlpes to describe an energy system. Various energy units are confgured with constraints and an objective: ProductionUnit, ConsumptionUnit and StorageUnit connected to single energy nodes, as well as ConversionUnit and ReversibleUnit, which can connect to various energy nodes. Energy nodes allow energy units of the same energy type to be linked while ensuring the power balance. The exergy module can quantify the exergy associated with the energy fow that the energy node receives/delivers for every energy unit. It can also quantify exergy destruction within the unit. These calculations are enabled for both thermal and electrical energy fows. The actors’ package represents actors’ objectives and constraints. Applying these constraints and objectives helps to differentiate between actor, technical and economic impacts. Thus, it could help stakeholders to negotiate the project. This actor package distinguishes three kinds of actor: regulator, operator and developer actors. Regulator actors may be local authorities or state authorities and add constraints to the project, which could be diffcult to remove. Operator actors operate energy units, and may be consumers or producers, among others. Their special characteristic is that the impact of their constraints and objectives is limited to the unit they operate. Developer actors are the people who play an active role in the development of the project. It may be useful to distinguish the three different kinds of actors in discussions between stakeholders. Predefned constraints and objectives are proposed to help in the design of the project for each stakeholder. However, to adapt the model to each project, new constraints and objectives can be added to the library. To address the problem of models without solutions, an algorithm has been redeveloped on OMEGAlpes to identify the incompatible constraint set. It is based on the work presented by Junker (2004) and Rodler (2001) and was developed in Ruby language by Verger (2015) under the MIT licence. However, it was not possible to use this module directly, leading it to be

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redeveloped in LPFICS (Linear Problems: Find Incompatible Constraint Sets) under the same licence. This algorithm has been adapted to identify whether the constraints are mathematical, technical or actor-related, and to search for one particular type of constraint. The module can be used in OMEGAlpes as well as independently. Further information on the structure, logics and features of OMEGAlpes can be found in Hodencq et al. (2021a). 2.1.3 Open-source OMEGAlpes puts into practice open-energy modelling key principles (Hodencq et al., 2021b), entailing the advantages of such modelling, as discussed in Section 1.4. The tool and example codes are fully documented (Delinchant et al., 2021), and the available code and data can reproduce the examples and achieve the same results. A Gitlab internet mediated platform allows for open-source development techniques and practices, with potential contributions on the versioned source codes of both the tool and examples. Regarding the examples, a full open workfow is developed: open-energy data are processed with open-source codes and used in OMEGAlpes (the free, open-source tool), leading to results that are also processed and made openly available. The aims and assumptions of the study are explicitly made transparent. Finally, interpretations are provided in open access in the form of articles or statements. Determining what to publish openly is of great importance since some elements should remain private for security, ethical or intellectual property reasons. The European Union guidelines on open access: “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” (European Commission, 2019), should be followed. Apart from the aforementioned exceptions, every element of the workfow should be open from a legal (i.e., properly licenced) and technical stance (i.e., actually accessible and in keeping with recognized standards). 2.1.4 Accessibility for the open-source community The reader may have noticed that OMEGAlpes has a wide range of functionalities. Several questions would arise logically for any potential user at this point: Who will carry out optimizations on OMEGAlpes in the framework of a project? Who will have the skills to interpret results given by the tool? If I want one engineer of my team to use the tool, will that person require special training? Is it possible to reconcile the complexity of this tool with an open community of developers? Beyond open-source interests and practices, OMEGAlpes aims at making MILP optimization models for design and operation accessible for energy project stakeholders in pre-study phases. Thus, its open-source code goes along with documentation, a graphical formalism and generation tool (see Section 2.2.3.) and the academic and operational use cases described in Jupyter Notebooks (Project Jupyter, 2020). Jupyter Notebooks (hereafter

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 321 referred to simply as “notebooks”) are code fles detailed by means of text or image, and directly shareable, usable and modifable by web application, with no need for local environment. Beyond the capitalisation and diffusion of the uses of models, such notebooks can be used as intermediary objects to collaborate on the use cases. This is made possible by the intermediate level of complexity of notebooks, compared to the model or framework code and documentation (Hodencq et al., 2021b). Tutorials and beginner examples enable the functionalities and uses of the models to be quickly grasped, without the need for an execution environment, through the direct use of Jupyter Notebooks with the “Mybinder” public service (Jupyter, 2018). Efforts are currently being made for OMEGAlpes developers and users to form a community, with training sessions, thematic meetings and a forthcoming online platform to offer synchronous or asynchronous socialization. Such a platform will also house use cases, open data, open-source tools and open access results, as well as good practices in open energy modelling. 2.1.5 Graphical formalism A formalism was proposed by Pajot (2019) to help stakeholders discuss a project. The aim was to create a representation that was based on “basic” elements to model technical systems but at the same time detailed enough to help stakeholders to exchange on their points of view on the energy project. As in unifed modeling language, energy units are represented as boxes. However, the formalism has a colour code to distinguish the kind of energy used, and can show the sort of energy unit by the position and type of logo. Energy fows are represented as arrows, and energy nodes as circles. Objectives and constraints are also represented. Interest variables can be highlighted by cursors. Taking this further, a graphical interface (Figures E2.1 and E2.2) has been developed to enable people to model their own project (https://mhi-srv. g2elab.grenoble-inp.fr/OMEGAlpes-web-front-end/). The graphical interface is based on the previous formalism and directly linked to the Python code to produce the source code associated to the energy project model. The frst libraries of OMEGAlpes models are now available in the graphical interface. The parameters of the energy unit can be selected or completed, while constraints and objectives can be added. 2.1.6 Development The OMEGAlpes community has expanded beyond its creators, and new developers are working on its modules. The list below summarizes some of the latest and current developments at the time of writing: •

A recently developed linearization module allowing non-linear problems to be transformed into linear ones that OMEGAlpes can solve.

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Figure E2.1 Graphical formalism for OMEGAlpes optimization problems (images adapted from Delinchant et al., 2018, section “OMEGAlpes Graphical Representation”) Source: Authors.

Figure E2.2 Screen shot of the OMEGAlpes-web graphical interface

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The modelling of new energy units, some of which are recent developments at the time of writing. One example is reversible units, i.e., units that can transform energy between two vectors and allow the direction of the transformation to be switched. Others, for instance, heat exchangers, are undergoing testing for fnal implementation. Prospective work

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 323

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is also being conducted, including exergy analyses for additional energy vectors, such as chemical, potential or kinetic energy, among other improvements. New functionalities for energy fexibility, e.g., the possibility of defning specifc time zones where a unit can or cannot operate. This approach will enrich OMEGAlpes’ existing tools for assessing energy fexibility, by means of “semi-shiftable” energy units. A prospective module on exergo-economic analysis, for attributing monetary costs to irreversibility within energy units. This module will be in synergy with the existing modules on exergy and economic analyses, since some outputs of the latter will be necessary as an input for the exergo-economic module.

Interested developers are welcome to join the OMEGAlpes team. The project’s Gitlab page contains all the necessary information for downloading and installing the tool, creating one’s own working branch, testing the developments and suggesting new merges. 2.2 Multi-stakeholder decision support algorithm built around OMEGAlpes The previous sub-sections have established the OMEGAlpes tool and its functionalities. OMEGAlpes is designed to facilitate decision making when choosing the appropriate design of an energy project. A methodology is suggested in this sub-section extend the application of OMEGAlpes to multi-stakeholder conception projects. The description of this methodology has been adapted for the use of OMEGAlpes as the central simulation and optimization tool. Nonetheless, the reader should bear in mind that the methodology is perfectly applicable to other tools, providing their functionalities are similar to those of OMEGAlpes. The entire methodology (Figure E2.3) rests on OMEGAlpes as its cornerstone. In addition, two ways of visualizing information help stakeholders interpret the results obtained from OMEGAlpes. The procedure starts by defning the project, i.e., the prospective energy system, its components, possible variations in the design, different scenarios for study and the interested parties (Step 0). When all these details are clear, the procedure enters a phase of MILP optimization by means of the OMEGAlpes tool (Step 1). OMEGAlpes open-source features bring about transparency, making way for collaboration and confdence in the offered solutions. The outputs of OMEGAlpes are then used for a preliminary evaluation of the performance of each design (Step 2). The suitability of each design is assessed for each of the stakeholders, and possibilities of relaxation (regarding constraints, objectives…) are also investigated. All this information is represented in a user-friendly way through two visual tools that will be introduced in the following sub-sections.

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Figure E2.3 Decision support methodology built around OMEGAlpes

On the basis of the above tools, the stakeholders are in a position to engage in negotiations on the feasibility of the project (Step 3). The concept of “feasibility” is two-fold at this point. First, the implementation of the

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 325 prospective system must be technically feasible. Otherwise, the MILP optimizations (back in Step 1) will not yield a result. Second, multi-stakeholder feasibility must be assured, i.e., there must exist at least one design that respects the NO-GO criteria of all the stakeholders. If these conditions are fulflled, the project proposal enters a phase of detailed multi-criteria analysis (Step 4), in which the different designs can be ranked. With this detailed information, stakeholders, who normally have different preferences, can engage in new negotiations towards choosing the optimal design (Step 5). If the last round of negotiations is successful, then a multi-stakeholder optimal design has been found. Should negotiations point to redefnitions in the project, it will be necessary to take a few steps back in the procedure. Lastly, if, despite all the rounds of negotiations and relaxation, the project is not viable, it will be ultimately discarded. This iterative decision algorithm integrates two main innovations. First, the use of the OMEGAlpes tool accounts for the system’s operating phase as early as the design phase. Second, with the multiple assessments and negotiation phases, it is relatively adaptive to stakeholders’ decisions. The OMEGAlpes tool has been developed precisely with the aim of favouring stakeholders’ negotiations based on preliminary evaluations. The sub-sections below detail the steps of the iterative procedure. Step 0: Defning the study cases The procedure starts by defning the project and its potential scenarios, as well as identifying the stakeholders and their priorities (Step 0). The term “scenarios” encompasses the feasible technical confgurations for the prospective system and the stakeholders’ ownership shares in that system. “Priorities”, applied to stakeholders, has a two-fold implication. First, it refers to the stakeholders’ objectives and decision criteria for the project. Second, it concerns technical and operational limitations within their socio-technical perimeters, if existing units of said stakeholders are implied in the project. In that case, the simulation and optimization stages should account for such limitations. OMEGAlpes enables them to be modelled in the form of constraints (see Section 2.1.2). In this step, the socio-technical assemblage of energy units and stakeholders is of the utmost importance. Each energy unit should be under the control of one operator; otherwise, the prospective energy system may not function properly as a whole. If an actor that controls one of the units is missing, that actor should become involved in the project. It should be noted that types of stakeholders usually depend on types of energy units. For example, electrical or thermal networks do not have the same type of operator. As this is an iterative decision procedure, this step is repeatable at any point, using the outputs of later steps as feedback. For instance, if OMEGAlpes optimizations return that the design has no feasible solution, this

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information is fed to Step 0 for the problem to be re-formulated (for instance, by relaxing a technical constraint). If negotiations require a stakeholder to relax one of their preferences, this information is likewise fed back to Step 0. This approach, combined with the OMEGAlpes decision support tool, facilitates fnding the design that suits all the stakeholders. Step 0 is the most transversal one since it requires solid communication between all the parties. It is also one of the most infuential since the way a project is formulated shapes all subsequent stages (simulation, analysis, negotiations, optimization and fnal solution). This frst formulation will consider technical elements, and possibly economic ones. As stakeholders have an impact on the project, certain authors advise explicitly modelling them into the design (Hinker et al., 2017; Li, Trutnevyte and Strachan, 2015). While, in former energy projects, one stakeholder was suffcient to draw up the design, modern projects involve multiple stakeholders; their design ought therefore to be a consensus of multiple actors. An actor that will be affected by the project might try to block it. It is consequently necessary to identify them and assess the impact of their potential involvement in the formulation of the project. Step 1: OMEGAlpes optimizations By the end of Step 0, all the necessary information for the simulations should be available. This includes at least the technical data, and usually economic and environmental data. With said data, the decision support tool fnds a solution to the optimization problem (if there is one). The authors of this chapter strongly recommend OMEGAlpes for such optimizations, as it allows the project’s operation phase, including the actors’ responsibility perimeters, to be taken into account already in the design phase. This functionality is essential for projects driven by renewable sources due to the intermittency of such sources. In addition, OMEGAlpes allows optimization problems to be formulated in a MILP format, with the advantages described in Section 1.5. To formulate an optimization problem for OMEGAlpes, the users can either use the graphic interface (see Section 2.1.5) or write a Python script themselves. In the former case, the graphic interface generates the script automatically from the diagram created by the users. The generated script contains the necessary imports, the declaration of all energy units and nodes depicted in the diagram, and the necessary commands to execute the optimization. The user must then enter the numerical values for the parameters requested at each sub-model, i.e., for the simulation of energy units. These parameters may involve maximal power, maximal energy, maximal time of utilization, effciencies, self-discharge (for storage units) and temperature levels, among others. The user must also provide the data profles for every energy unit that is a FixedEnergyUnit (refer to the OMEGAlpes documentation), for instance, the heat consumption profle of a residential

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 327 neighbourhood whose supply system is to be optimized. The user can also select the optimization objective, possibly by minimizing the production of a certain unit, or minimize the exergy destruction of some units or both these. With the results obtained from OMEGAlpes, the next step is to evaluate each design with the different criteria and determine which designs are the best candidates. Step 2: Cross-analysis With the results from Step 1, the next step is to compare the designs preferred by each stakeholder and evaluate the level of agreement. To make this process more intuitive, the authors propose two tools for visualizing information. The frst is a “cross-analysis matrix”, whose main purpose is to spot the areas of agreement and disagreement between the stakeholders, as a function of the designs that they prefer. The second is a “multi-criteria radar” that shows relative optimality of each design with respect to each criterion. Figure E2.4 displays a sample matrix in a scenario with two stakeholders, each guided by four different criteria. Furthermore, each stakeholder could become the owner of the prospective system. The matrix is constructed as follows. Each line represents a design that is optimal for a certain criterion of a certain stakeholder. The authors call these “locally-optimal designs”. The columns in the matrix represent the evaluation of each locally-optimal design, according to each criterion of each stakeholder. Within each intersection between line and column, a colour and a letter indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement between the stakeholders. In the example shown in Figure E2.4, bold-green (marked with an “A”) indicates full agreement between the two stakeholders. Note that the downward diagonal of the matrix is naturally bold-green since it compares designs (lines) that are optimal for those criteria (columns). However, the rest of the coloured cells are not symmetrical with respect to the diagonal. This is because, while lines represent designs, columns represent evaluations of designs (through the optimization criteria). The results of these evaluations depend on exactly which lines (designs) and columns (criteria) are being compared. Thus, each coloured cell contributes unique information. A red cell (marked with an “E”) indicates that the suggested design (line) violates a NO-GO threshold for that criterion of the stakeholder in question (column). An example would be a design that is environmentally optimal for one stakeholder but induces economic loss for another. If a locally-optimal design does not encounter any red cell, then it is feasible. If it encounters at least one red cell, it would require negotiation to enable implementation. The more red cells a locally-optimal design encounters (lines), the more

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Figure E2.4 Example illustration of the Cross-analysis matrix

diffcult it will be to implement. The more red cells a criterion induces (columns), the more confictive that criterion is. In the example of Fig. 4, three other colours represent intermediate degrees between full agreement and NO-GO violation (see legend). Light green (marked with a “B”) indicates that the locally-optimal design may be accepted by the other stakeholder, if they are somewhat tolerant to the sub-optimality of the design in their criterion. Yellow and orange (marked with a “C” and a “D”, respectively) cells represent the same concept, but with moderate and heavy tolerance, respectively. In general, the greener a matrix, the better the agreement between stakeholders. It is up to the stakeholders to decide which limits they accept for light, medium and heavy tolerance. For example, the limits could be a sub-optimality of up to 5%, 15% and 30%, respectively. Project engineers in charge of this procedure may wish to simplify the matrix by plotting only green/red cells (thus representing just GO and NO-GO). Alternatively, they may prefer to make it more detailed, by representing further ranges of (dis)agreement with more nuances of colours, providing the thresholds are well defned for the stakeholders. The matrix is organized into quadrants, which represent intersections between stakeholders. Quadrants contrasting two different stakeholders are “negotiation quadrants”, in other words a support for negotiations. Quadrants contrasting one stakeholder with themself are rather informative as they display the divergence of the different criteria relevant to that stakeholder. In the event of relaxations by the stakeholders, the authors recommend re-plotting the matrix and comparing it with its previous version. In the example shown in Figure E2.4, Evaluation Criterion #8 is the only confictive one on the part of Stakeholder #2. Meanwhile, Stakeholder #1 has mostly confictive criteria (#2, #3 and #4). The matrix indicates that optimal designs preferred by Stakeholder #2 will face very diffcult

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 329 negotiations (refer to the down-left quadrant). Most of their locally-optimal designs either infringe “NO-GO” or require heavy tolerance from Stakeholder #1. Design #7 is clear, but it infringes a “NO GO” for Stakeholder #2 themself. Locally-optimal designs for Stakeholder #1 require generally less tolerance from Stakeholder #2, but most of them violate the “NO GO” threshold for Evaluation Criterion #8 (refer to the upper-right quadrant). Without any relaxations, Design #4 is the only feasible one. Figure E2.5 presents the second tool proposed for visualization of the information: the multi-criteria radar. It displays the relative optimality of a given design, with respect to every criterion from every stakeholder. By “relative optimality”, the authors understand “the distance between the performance of the evaluated design and that of the optimal design, with regard to that particular criterion of the stakeholder”. The example shown in Figure E2.5 represents the performance, before and after relaxations, of one particular design under four different scenarios. In each scenario, a different stakeholder is the owner (as pointed out by the yellow stars). For the sake of variety, the scenarios do not have the same number or type of stakeholders. Relative optimality changes in each scenario, because performance indicators for the stakeholders depend on the scenario. The radar can be a tool for comparing different designs, or a same design under different conditions (scenarios, relaxations…). Combined with the matrices, it orientates stakeholders towards the most promising scenarios. For the illustrative example given in Figure E2.5, Design #1 performs better overall after certain relaxations in technical constraints by some of the stakeholders. Furthermore, it would be wise to discard Scenario #3, since it is hardly feasible before relaxations (due to EC #20 and EC #28) and after relaxations (due to EC #17). Scenarios #1 and #2 would be discarded as well (due to EC #8 and #12, respectively), but with relaxations they become feasible. Lastly, Scenario #4 is feasible both before relaxations, and becomes more promising after them. The matrices and the radar are backed up by numerical results from the simulations, in case negotiations become quantitative. If one radar alone becomes too cumbersome for representing all designs, multiple radars can be plotted. Alternatively, only the most promising solutions can be plotted, or only those that are feasible. Step 3: Negotiations on feasibility (and potential re-formulation) At the end of Step 2, MILP optimization results have been obtained for each of the target designs. Solutions that have returned the “Optimal” status should not yet be considered as fnal, but as options to be discussed and, if necessary, negotiated. As the project involves multiple stakeholders, it may be diffcult to fnd an appropriate design at the frst attempt. The main purpose of Step 3 is to verify that at least one system design respects NO-GO thresholds for all stakeholders. The main questions at this point are: “Will

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Figure E2.5 Illustrative example of multicriteria radar

it be possible to fnd an agreement? If so, under which conditions?” The matrices and the radar resulting from Step 2 set the framework for these negotiations. The radar indicates if relaxations can yield better solutions, and the matrices show what sort of relaxations would be necessary. The stakeholders may fnd out that some designs are less promising than they seemed at frst glance, and may want to change their priorities or their constraints. Some stakeholders may wish to abandon the project, or adhere to it (changes in Step 0); new design variants or ownership scenarios might be spotted (revise Step 0); some stakeholders may review their decision criteria or NO-GO thresholds (Step 2), among other possibilities. To reach an agreement, the stakeholders will probably also have to relax constraints linked to stakeholders, technical or economic factors. This leads to a reformulation of the problem, after which it is tested again, as depicted on the diagram for the iterative algorithm. Due to the MILP formulation adopted, optimization times are relatively quick considering the high number of variables and constraints, which allows various solutions to be tested.

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 331 This step is the opportunity for re-defning all the aspects above. If no viable solution can be spotted after these negotiations, then the project should be discarded. Step 4: Multi-criteria decision support At the end of a successful Step 3, there will be at least one feasible design for the prospective system. If there is more than one, a deeper analysis is necessary for determining the optimal design. To such end, the authors recommend multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). These procedures require stakeholders to provide some more detailed information. For instance, the exact weight that they give to each decision criterion, or their thresholds for prioritizing one solution over another from the standpoint of each criterion. It is important to defne these parameters carefully, since the fnal solution may change radically due to just one threshold. MCDA methods are state-of-the-art and their detailed techniques are available elsewhere, for instance, for the ELECTRE family of methods (Figueira, Greco and Ehrogott, 2005). Their outputs are a number of decision trees that display which solution(s) is (are) optimal for each stakeholder, which solutions are equivalent, and which are non-comparable, among others. MCDA may be a computationally costly procedure, especially in large projects with numerous design alternatives. Besides, these procedures require certain input parameters that even the interested stakeholders are sometimes not sure about (e.g., indifference, preference and veto thresholds). Gathering all this information reliably may require time-consuming discussions between experts, both internal and external. For instance, the defnition of thresholds on energy criteria may require the participation of process engineers. Drawing up thresholds on process costs or benefts may also call for the involvement of economists. It is up to the stakeholders to decide which professionals should be involved at this point. Consequently, the authors recommend using MCDA if – and only if – the project makes it through preliminary negotiations, in other words, those related to multi-stakeholder feasibility. The previous steps within this algorithmic procedure, especially Steps 2 and 3, aim at facilitating semi-technical negotiations between the stakeholders in a swift, visual way, and discarding designs that do not respect all NO-GO criteria. Step 5: Negotiations (multi-stakeholder suitability) Results from the multi-criteria decision analyses set the framework for the second round of negotiations. This time, only feasible designs are on the list, and negotiations revolve around fnding the most suitable design for all stakeholders as a group. It is probable that there will not be one design that suits everyone’s optimal aspirations. Nevertheless, a compromise should be attainable because the project proposal has survived the feasibility studies.

332 Jaume Fitó et al. The variety of decision criteria should yield more opportunities for agreement, hence the importance of multi-criteria approaches. Even at this point, it is possible to go back upstream in the procedure and introduce changes for the sake of identifying a successful project. If diffculties for agreement stem from the MCDA analysis, the stakeholders may revise their priorities or thresholds (Step 4). If the issue is upstream, they can try to apply changes described in Step 3 (refer to Section 2.2.4). It is recommendable not to go too far upstream since the project proposal has undergone at least one round of negotiations at this point. Changes in previous steps would restart negotiations, which would be time-consuming. This means that, even at this stage, the impossibility of an agreement may lead to a project being discarded, despite having proved feasible. Stakeholders should therefore consider their decisions carefully once the project proposal reaches this step. Hypotheses and boundaries of the procedure The procedure here presented rests on a series of assumptions. First, Step 0 assumes that all relevant actors have been properly identifed. This involves not only potential stakeholders, but also any actors who can have an impact on the conception of the project. The latter are modelled implicitly as technical constraints or objectives. Step 0 also assumes that all these actors are willing to facilitate the success of the project (the stakeholders actively through this procedure, the rest at least passively). One should note that no model could take into account all the subtleties of an energy project. This methodology is hence limited to what can be modelled, and what stakeholders wish to model. This is a limitation to keep in mind while analysing solutions. Accordingly, Step 1 assumes that any units, parameters, constraints or objectives that cannot be modelled have been properly assessed, and that the risks of not modelling them are assumable. Moreover, Step 1 assumes that the MILP optimization is feasible, which might prove wrong. In real-life projects, the model is usually over-constrained. In such cases, MILP optimization becomes unfeasible and the relaxation of constraints is not only recommendable, but indispensable. Overall, the procedure is built on the assumption that stakeholders will remain consistent with their approach to the project. The procedure envisages that they introduce logical changes in their approaches, especially during the negotiations (Steps 3 and 5). Yet, it should be borne in mind that a stakeholder might leave the project at any stage for any stochastic reason. As such, the “Re-defne the project” arrow in Figure E2.3 can be applied to any step of the procedure, even if, for the sake of clarity, it is only displayed in negotiation steps. Lastly, it should be noted that this methodology and its tools are intended only for support. The fnal shape of the project is the entire responsibility of human decision-makers.

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3 Case study: industrial waste heat recovery Many references exist on the application of OMEGAlpes to a variety of projects (Hodencq et al., 2019; Morriet et al., 2018; 2019; Pajot et al., 2018; 2019a; 2019b). The methodology built around OMEGAlpes is currently in development but detailed studies are presented in Fitó et al. (2020a; 2020b; 2020c). The case discussed in said studies consists in the recovery of waste heat from the French National Laboratory of Intense Magnetic Fields (LNCMI) in Grenoble, France. The prospective project is a system for waste heat recovery on a nearby network operated by the Grenoble district heating network operator (CCIAG). This waste heat recovery system is made up of a thermal storage unit and a heat-pumping unit. The system can be designed for three different inlet temperatures (35°C, 50°C and 85°C) and fve different storage capacities (from 0 to 40 MWh by steps of 10 MWh). Thus, the “inlet temperature/storage capacity” dual parameters can be optimized. This system would be at the interface (Figure E2.6) between two main stakeholders: the LNCMI (“supplier” of waste heat) and the CCIAG (“demander” of heat for residential purposes). It may be owned by either of these two stakeholders, or by a third party (“THIRD”, currently unidentifed), or by a LNCMI/ CCIAG consortium (“CSRT”, potentially expandable with the addition of other interested investors). Given that the successful implementation of the system depends at least on both the LNCMI and the CCIAG, the conception of this project is by defnition multi-stakeholder. The application of our methodology was simulated through publications. Fitó et al. (2020a) presented a preliminary study integrating energy and exergy indicators. The researchers (Fitó et al., 2020b) subsequently expanded the assessment through 4E multi-criteria analysis (Energy, Exergy, Economy, Environmental) on the assumption of a LNCMI/CCIAG consortium with perfect consensus. More recently, Fitó et al. (2020c) started focusing on stakeholder negotiations, although only with energy and economic criteria. The 4E evaluation without perfect consensus is work in progress, and preliminary matrices have been obtained (Figure E2.7). One of the main conclusions from these is that the formation of a Consortium (Scenario 4) would facilitate consensus and therefore the deployment of the prospective system. Another conclusion is that exergy-related NO-GOs are most confictive point for LNCMI, while CCIAG and THIRD are hampered by economic NO-GOs. A preliminary radar was also obtained for this case study (Figure E2.8). It shows that, for most scenarios, there is only one feasible design for the system: an inlet temperature of 85°C and a storage capacity of 10 MWh. This is without relaxations of any kind. After some relaxations, the design with an inlet temperature of 85°C and a storage capacity of 30 MWh outperformed the other designs. It was also noted that the formation of a Consortium (Scenario 4) enabled a greater number of feasible designs as stakeholders in the Consortium could accept further tolerances on their performance criteria.

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Figure E2.6 Representation of the LNCMI multi-stakeholder case study with socio-technical nodes. EXP = Experimentation facilities; DIS = Heat dissipation units; TES = Thermal energy storage; HP = Heat pump; HS = Heat supplier; DHN = District heating network; NS = Network’s substations

Figure E2.7 Preliminary cross-analysis matrices for selected scenarios of the LNCMI case study. For the legend, see Figure E2.4

At the time of writing, the studies by Fitó et al. (2020a; 2020b) are the peer-reviewed publications that most approach the iterative methodology described in this chapter. At this juncture, the preliminary multi-criteria assessment has been carried out on the project and the multi-stakeholder

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Figure E2.8 Multicriteria radar for all scenarios of the LNCMI case study

negotiations have been simulated. The full deployment of the iterative methodology is work in progress.

4 Conclusion and outlook This chapter has presented a methodology for the conception of community energy projects driven by on-the-spot renewable sources, based on the following principles: • • • •

Open science (open data, open source, open access) Multi-criteria assessment Multi-stakeholder approach Decision support

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The methodology rests on two main pillars. The frst is a technical simulation tool to engage and facilitate the stakeholder negotiation phase, with the second being an iterative procedure that links said tool with the process of human decision-making. The interface between both is enriched through the possibility of techno-economic pre-evaluations, extendable to multi-criteria assessment depending on stakeholders’ expectations. The methodology takes into account the importance of defning and updating the set of actors and resources of an energy project throughout its design, preferably as early as possible. It aims at defning and solving the technical problems in the most collaborative way. Two specifc tools have been developed for such purposes: (1) the OMEGAlpes tool, a mixed-integer linear programming tool for optimizing the conception and the operation of renewable energy-driven systems at district scale and (2) an iterative procedure to facilitate consensus between stakeholders. The procedure, in turn, is built on OMEGAlpes, combined with multi-criteria analysis and two tools for easier visualization of the information. The methodology is exemplifed with a case study inspired from a real project of waste heat recovery in France. The tools and methodology presented in this chapter can support the technical design of future energy systems, in multi-disciplinary environments such as urban development, community self-consumption and urban heat recovery. Their development and application have been rather academic up to this point, but collaborations are in progress for real-life implementation. For instance, with an urban project of collective photovoltaic self-consumption, or a project of waste heat recovery at district scale with an agreement to be reached between two partners, and possibly an intermediate party. Both OMEGAlpes and the iterative procedure are expected to evolve to meet the needs of future energy planners.

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to La Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for their fnancial support through the OREBE project (Optimisation holistique des Réseaux d’Energie et des Bâtiments producteurs d’énergies dans les Eco-quartiers). They are also grateful to the ADEME (the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management) for their fnancial support through the RETHINE project (Réseaux Electriques et THermiques InterconNEctés). This work has been partially supported by the CDP Eco-SESA receiving funding from the French National Research Agency (“ANR: Agence Nationale de la Recherche”) in the framework of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02). The authors thank the current and former members of the development team for the optimization tool used in this study, OMEGAlpes, especially Benoit Delinchant (G2Elab, Grenoble, France), Mathieu Brugeron (G2Elab, Grenoble, France) and Camille Pajot (Ohm Energie, Rennes, France).

Multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach in energy system design 337 The authors are grateful to the collaborators that participated in the different studies leading to the inspiration for this methodology. This acknowledgement applies especially to François Debray (LNCMI, France), Benjamin Vincent (LNCMI, France), Loïc Giraud (CCIAG, France) and Nicolas Giraud (CCIAG, France). The authors also thank the French National Laboratory of Intense Magnetic Fields for facilitating real operational data of their electric consumption and other technical details; allowing the synthetic profle of electric consumption generated from that data to be published in the articles and allowing the synthetic profle to be made available in OMEGAlpes Documentation (Delinchant et al., 2021) for public use under licence (ODC-By v1.0).

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Index

Note: Italicized, bold and bold italics refer to fgures, tables and boxes. Page numbers followed by “n” refer to notes. Aazami, A. 252 Abada, I. 288n2 Abadi, J. 288n5 ACC projects 137 Acosta, C. 70 active customer113, 118 ADEME see Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (now Agence de la transition écologique) Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (ADEME, now Agence de la transition écologique) 128, 142n7 agencement 105, 108, 126, 128–130; market 127; socio-technical 126–127 Agnoletti, M.-F. 6, 7, 9, 21, 27, 28 Airbnb 271, 274, 275 Ajah, A.N. 315 architect 301 AREC see Occitanie Regional Agency for Energy and Climate ARENH see Regulated Access to Historic Nuclear Energy Artis, A. 149 assemblage, change of 307 Aubert, F. 3, 297, 302, 306–308 Australia 51, 61 Azim, M. I. 288n11 Baldvinsson, I. 316 Ballon, J. 149 Barthe, Y. 84n15 Bauwens, T. 51 B-DER project, in the Netherlands 264 BDM label, organization proposing 301 Belgium: Ecopower 178 Benny Farm 60

BEUC see Bureau Europeen des Unions de Consommateurs Blangy, S. 149 blockchain 262–263 BlueFactory technology park, Freiburg, Switzerland 30, 89–92, 91, 94–96, 94–95, 98; chronology of 96 Boltanski, L. 152, 204 Bonnardot, Z. 44 Brangier, E. 6, 7, 9, 21, 27, 28, 31, 44 Brechon, P. 297 Brummer, V. 18 Brunnermeier, M. 288n5 Bulkeley, H.: Cities and Low Carbon Transitions 8 Bureau Europeen des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC) 239 Burgerwerke eG 239 Callon, M. 84n15, 108 Canada 61 Canadian GeoExchange Coalition (CGC) 50 Caramizaru, A. 288n2 CCIAG see Grenoble district heating network operator CECs see citizen energy communities Celsius Co-op 55 Celsius project 29, 64; collective action space, appropriation and modulation of 54–57, 57; green alley, constraints and benefts of 57–58; pre-existing collective action space 53–54 CEP see Clean Energy Package CGC see Canadian GeoExchange Coalition CGT 127

342

Index

Chatterjee, P. 82 Chatzisideris, M.D. 135 Cities and Low Carbon Transitions (Bulkeley) 8 citizen, public, and private partnership projects (CPPs) 192–209; achieving cooperation in 204–207; civil society partners draw on civic, domestic, and commercial regimes 206; co-developed 197–199, 198; descriptive statistical analysis of 195–197, 196; empirical modelling 195–197; energy production and distribution, centralization of 203; institutional environment support to 199–204; as participatory renewable energy project 193–195, 194; polycentric governance between stakeholders 204; private developers draw on industrial, civic, and commercial regimes 205; private developers draw on industrial and commercial regimes 205; sociohistorical analysis of emergence of co-developed 201–202; support networks draw on industrial and civic regimes 206; tensions between different RE project models 202–204; types of stakeholders participating in 207 citizen-based energy transition, political legitimacy of 80–82 citizen cooperatives 149 citizen energy communities (CECs) 107, 214, 260 citizen participation in digital business models, criteria for 227–229, 228 clean energy community 220 Clean Energy Package (CEP) 220 CLER see Comite de liaison energies renouvelables climate justice 111 Club van Wageningen 252 collective self-consumption (CSC) 67, 71–74, 80, 105–109; as activity of energy communities to maintain localism of exchanges 118–121; controversial emergence of 126–143; of electricity 69–70; operations, legal status of producer of 113–118; operations, regulatory framework of 106–108, 110–122; as way to rationalize self-consumption 133–134 Colombia, transactive energy in 258

Comite de liaison energies renouvelables (CLER) 128, 134, 136, 142n8 Commission de régulation de l’énergie 120 common goods 68; collective selfconsumption of electricity 69–70; participatory housing 70–73, 72 commons 256; defnition of 111; as “politics through practices” 68 commons, energy communities and 29–30, 67–82; citizen-based energy transition, political legitimacy of 80–82; governance 73–80, 83n1; instituting praxis 68–69; living together, spatialization of 78–80, 79, 80; power distribution 77–78 communauté énergétique 2 communitarianism 3 community 2–4 community energy 220; as outcome of the local level 8–9; projects 5–7 community renewable energy (CRE) 51 community Virtual Power Plant (cVPP) 221 Confédération générale des travailleurs (General Confederation of Labour) 142n6 Consuel 301 consumer-actor, emergence of 112–113 consumer-centred energy markets, digital technologies for 216–217, 252–267; blockchain 262–263; decentralised energy markets, challenges of 259; DLT’s role in local energy markets 265; goodness 253–254; market design 259, 261–262; moving away from centralised energy system 254–255; peer-to-peer energy trading 255–258; regulation and policy making, role of 259 consumers 300 Contribution au service public de l’électricité (CSPE) 129, 134, 142n14 Co-op Le Coteau Vert 58, 59, 63; geothermal infrastructure 61; interior courtyard 60 Cortade, T. 214, 288n13 Coteau Vert project 29 counting energy 135–136 Coutard, O. 13 CPAUPE (Cahier des prescriptions architecturales, urbaines, paysageres et environnementale) 100, 103n7 Cplex 316

Index CPPs see citizen, public, and private partnership projects CRE see community renewable energy; Energy Regulation Commission crowdfunding 263 CSCI see “Societes cooperatives d’interet collectif ” (Cooperative Societies of Collective Interest) CSC see collective self-consumption CSPE see Contribution au service public de l’électricité CSRT 333 cVPP see community Virtual Power Plant Debizet, G. 8, 10, 11, 22, 23, 30, 101, 297 decarbonization 20–21 decentralisation 217; of the electricity 113–118; of power system operations 215 decentralised energy markets, challenges of 259 decentralized photovoltaic, new paradigm for 130–131 decentralized renewable energy, in Quebec cities 49–51 Delzendeh, E. 43 Démonstrateurs industriels pour la ville durable (Industrial Demonstrators for Sustainable Cities) 143n20 Denmark 51 departments 132, 142n16 DER see distributed energy resource Devine-Wright, P. 51 DGEC see Direction générale de l’énergie et du climat Dias, E. 149 digital business models, for energy communities 215–216, 219–246, 241–246; citizen participation, criteria for 227–229, 228; defnition of 235–237, 236; digital value of 234–235; energy communities in Germany, regulatory framework for 225, 227; landscape of 237; method 224–225, 226; opportunities for citizen participation 237–239; research gap and questions 223–224; review of offers 229–234, 231–234 digital divide 238 Digital Energy Communities 215 digital energy trading platforms 217– 218, 273; autarkic microgrid 285–286;

343

benchmark case without platform 280; economic analysis of 271–288; environment 276; experiences and projects 271–274; legal framework 275; market design 277; platform, as an aggregator 281–285, 284; pricing 277; prosumers 278–286; sharing economy 275; social value 275; specifc characteristics 277–278; technologies 276; TransActive Grid, Brooklyn 272–274, 274 digitalization, as driver for business model innovation 221–223, 222, 223 digital ledger technologies (DLT) 216; role in local energy markets 265 Direction générale de l’énergie et du climat (DGEC) 128, 130, 133, 142n9 disentanglement layers effect 257 dispositif 126 distributed energy resource (DER) 252, 264 distributional justice 232–233 distribution network operator 109 distribution system operators (DSOs) 127, 136, 137, 140, 141, 257 DIVD see Industrial Demonstrators for Sustainable Cities DLT see digital ledger technologies Doci, G. 51 Dorotić, H. 316 DSOs see distribution system operators Duić, N. 316 dynamic simulation space 317 eBay 271 Eco-Hameau des Granges, La Motte Servolex, France 30, 88, 90, 90–91, 91, 98–100; chronology of 97; connection to future Bourget Lake heating network 99, 99 ecological community housing, with local desire for geothermal energy 58 Economic, Social and Environmental Committee 202 EcoQuartier 99 “Eco-Sesa Smart Energies in Districts,” Grenoble Alpes University 71 EC see European Commission ECs see energy cooperatives EDF see Electricité de France effcacy 21–22 Einav, L. 277 EL see Enercoop Locales

344 Index electrician 301 Electricité de France (EDF) 127, 128, 132, 137, 139, 142n3, 176, 180 Electricity Directive (EU 2019/944) 113, 118, 275 Electricity Regulation (EU 2019/943) 275 electricity supplier 300 electrons, traceability of 180–181 EMIP see Enercoop Midi-Pyrenees EN see Enercoop Nationale Enedis 127, 140, 142n5 Enercoop 4, 6, 21, 149; emergence of 150, 172–187; in French electric sector, emergence of 175–177, 176; industrial policy 179–181; local swarming to survive the “destruction of a base” 186; members’ activist anchoring 185–186; methodological preamble 174–175; organizational structure 181–184; self-organization 186–187; self-organization to initiate horizontal system of government 184; statistics 178; tariff positioning 179; transformation of 150–151, 172–187 Enercoop Champagne-Ardenne (now Enercoop Nord-Est) 183 Enercoop Locales (EL) 183, 184 Enercoop Midi-Pyrenees (EMIP) 175, 182, 184–187 Enercoop Nationale (EN) 173, 175–177, 182–184, 186, 187, 188n4 Énergie Partagée 7, 150, 151, 193, 206, 213 energiphile household 41–42 Energir 59 energy: allocation formula 136–137; autonomy 4; as common good 203; communitarianism 140; consumption management activities 39; democracy 12–13, 52, 173, 178; distribution 74–76; fexibility 323; governance 111–112; policy trilemma 256; project 30; as private good 203; as public good 203; self-suffcient household 41; sharing communities, motivations and internal/local dynamics of 27; system installation/renovation activities 38; system management activities 39; territories 4; vulnerability 111 EnergyCoin Foundation 264 energy communities 1–14; actors in 22; digital business models for 215–216, 219–246; energy communities,

vision of 18–19; energy transition by 219–220; in European law 117–118, 120–121; household member of 42; as levers of energy transition 24–25; local 7–10; Montreal 51–53; transformative power of 3; types of 10–12; virtual 222 “Energy Concept” 93, 95 energy consumption management activities 39 energy cooperatives (ECs) 172, 173, 220 Energy Internet 216, 252, 288 energy justice 8, 110–112, 116, 119, 121; defnition of 106, 110 Energy Regulation Commission (CRE) 108 energy transition 219–220, 261, 316; citizen-based, political legitimacy of 80–82 Energy Transition Act of 2015 109 ENERPLAN 139, 301 engineering sciences 18–25 ergonomics 33 EuPD Research 240 European Commission (EC) 180, 186 European Commission’s updated Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) 260 European Economic and Social Committee 112 European Federation of Energy Cooperatives (REScoop) 201–202 European law, energy communities in 117–118, 120–121 European RED II 1 European Union (EU) 8, 13, 121, 172, 180, 181, 201, 238, 259, 294, 320; Commission 259; regulations 260; sandboxes 260 EU see European Union exergo-economic analysis 294, 323 Exergy (now Pando) 272 external authorities 300 Fédération nationale des collectivités concédantes et régies (FNCCR) 128, 132, 136–140, 142n10 feed-in tariffs (FiTs) 126, 128–130, 141 fnancial compensation model 230, 231 Fito, J. 333, 334 FiTs see feed-in tariffs fexibility 21–23 FNCCR see Fédération nationale des collectivités concédantes et régies foisonnement (diversity) 133, 142–143n17

Index Fonteneau, T. 108, 297 fossil energy 20, 254, 255 Foucault, M. 83n2, 126 France 172–173; 2015 Act of Energy Transition for Green Growth (TECV) 126, 133, 141n1; collective selfconsumption, as way to rationalize self-consumption 133–134; collective self-consumption, controversial emergence of 126–143; counting energy 135–136; CSC as activity of energy communities to maintain localism of exchanges 119; decentralisation of the electricity 114–116; decentralized photovoltaic, new paradigm for 130–131; electric sector, emergence of Enercoop in 175– 177, 176; energy allocation formula 136–137; Energy and Climate Act of 8 November 2019 138; existing taxes and levies, adapting 139–141; feed-in tariffs 129–130; French Energy Code 114–115, 118, 119; French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE, Commission de régulation de l’énergie) 128, 129, 132, 132, 137–140, 142n12; French Renewable Energy Trade Association 128; law on the social and solidarity economy (“l’Economie Sociale et Solidaire”) 188n6; Ministry of Finance 127; participatory renewable energy, cooperation within and institutionalization of 151–152, 192–209; perimeter, setting 137–139; prosumer, as fgure of liberal energy transition 131; self-consumption into political economy of the grid, diffculties integrating 131–133 France Urbaine (Urban France) 128 free choice of supplier 113, 114 French Energy Regulatory Commission 202 French National Laboratory of Intense Magnetic Fields (LNCMI) 333, 334, 335 FriCAD 93, 95, 101 Garabuau-Moussaoui, I. 3 Gaz Reseau de Distribution France (GRDF) 102n4 Geels, F.W. 13 geothermal energy 49–64 geothermal infrastructure, in community housing projects 61–63

345

Germany: CSC as activity of energy communities to maintain localism of exchanges 119; decentralisation of the electricity 116–117; Etikettenschwindel 267; Greenpeace Energy 178; regulatory framework for energy communities in 225, 227; Renewable Energy Sources Act 2021 116 Ghafghazi, S. 315 GHG see greenhouse gas emissions Gomez, A. 149 Gorbatcheva, A. 214 GO see guarantees of origin GRDF see Gaz Reseau de Distribution France Green Alleyway initiative 29, 53 green co-operative creation, reappropriation of collective spaces of action in 59–61 greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions 313 Gregg, J.S. 52 Grenoble district heating network operator (CCIAG) 333 grid services model 230–231, 232 GRTs (group of technical resources) 59, 61 guarantees of origin (GO) 179–181; impact in the Netherlands 266–267 Gui, E.M. 220 Gurobi 316 Habermas, J. 81 “habitat participatif” (participatory housing) 70–73, 72, 105 Haraway, D. 83n3 Heiskanen, E. 4 Hespul organization 128, 133, 134, 139, 301 Hicks, J. 51 Hinker, J. 295 holarchy 261, 268n3 home, renewable energy in: activities 38, 38–39, 39; future use scenarios 40–43; general needs 39–40, 40 Hopkins, R. 106 “human in the loop” approach 19 hybrid forum 77–78, 84n15 hydroelectricity 49–50 Hydro-Quebec 50 ICOs see Initial Coin Offerings IMED see Internal Market for Electricity Directive

346 Index India, decentralised energy trading in 258 individual self-consumption (ISC) 107, 108, 126, 128, 133–136, 139, 141 Industrial Demonstrators for Sustainable Cities (DIVD) 138 industrial waste heat recovery 333–335, 334, 335 inhabited spaces, collective action through 30, 67–82; collective selfconsumption of electricity 69–70; common good embodied in 73–80; ethnography 70–73, 72; instituting praxis 68–69 Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) 263 instituting praxis 68–69 Internal Market for Electricity Directive (IMED) 1, 118, 120, 220 Internet of Energy 259 IRENA 288n4, 288n7 iREPS project 92, 94–101 ISC see individual self-consumption Ison, N. 51 Italian beni comuni movement 29, 68 Junker, U. 319 Jupyter Notebooks 320–321 Kalkbrenner, B.J. 43, 229 King, S. 288n9 Krishnan, R. 275 Kusakana, K. 288n6 La Branche, S. 43 Lakhani, K.R. 288n5 La Motte-Servolex 90, 100, 101 Lansiti, M. 288n5 La Petite-Patrie 29, 52, 54, 57, 59 La Petite-Patrie Housing Committee 59 Lascoumes, P. 84n15 Le Bon Coin 271 Lefebvre, H. 68 legal entity 301 Le Monde 140 LEMs see local energy markets Lennon, B. 228 Les Colibres project 29 lexicographic analysis method 22 Li, F.G.N. 295 Lition 274 Litvine, D. 149 living together, spatialization of 78–80, 79, 80

LNCMI see French National Laboratory of Intense Magnetic Fields LO3 Energy 274 local 4–5; as counter-model 7–8 local authority 300 local energy communities 7–10 local energy markets (LEMs) 232–233, 235, 238, 240 LOCIE 318 l’Oeuf 59, 60 Lopez, F. 13 Lormeteau, B. 107 Lowitzsch, J. 239 LPFICS (Linear Problems: Find Incompatible Constraint Sets) 320 Luo, Y. 316 MacArthur, J.L. 50 MacGill, I. 220 Maître, R. 5, 6, 9–12, 21, 149, 213 management support tools 23 market agencement 127 marketplace 231–232, 233 Martin, C.J. 6, 27, 28 MCDA see multi-criteria decision analysis MDA see model-driven architecture Melville, E. 68 Métropole Savoie 90 micro-TURPE 139–141 MILP see mixed-integer linear programming mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) 313, 317, 318, 332 model-driven architecture (MDA) 318 Moroni, S. 4, 6 Morriet, L. 22, 23, 297 multi-actor negotiation 23 multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) 331, 332 multi-stakeholder decision support algorithm 323–332, 324, 334, 329 multi-stakeholders’ communities, design energy projects for 291–294 Nakata, T. 316 Negawatt 128 Netherlands, the 172; B-DER project 264; guarantees of origin, impact of 266–267 net-metering 131 NOME 180 Nouvelle Aquitaine 150

Index

347

Nouvelle économie sociale (New Social Economy, “NSE”) 173, 177, 188n7; theoretical framework of 174 NSE see Nouvelle économie sociale (New Social Economy)

OREP 299 organizational proximities 9 Organizing Moral Person (OMP) 69 Orsini, L. 274 Oström, E. 68, 111, 204

Occitanie Regional Agency for Energy and Climate (AREC) 201 OEMOF see Open Energy Modelling Framework Oluleye, G. 317 OMEGAlpes 295, 313, 316–326, 336; cross-analysis 327–328, 334; development 321–323; features of 318–320; general description 317– 318; graphical formalism 321, 322; hypotheses and boundaries of the procedure 332; multi-criteria decision support 331; multi-stakeholder decision support algorithm 323–332, 324, 334, 329; negotiations (multistakeholder suitability) 331–332; negotiations on feasibility (and potential re-formulation) 328–331; open-source 320; open-source community, accessibility for 320; optimizations 326–327; structure of 318–320 OMP see Organizing Moral Person Open Energy Modelling Framework (OEMOF) 295 open-source approach 294 operator actors 300 OpinionWay Barometer for Qualit’ENR survey 200 optimization decision support tools, stakeholders’ motivations in models of 295–310; change of assemblage 307; choice of feld and materials 297; constraints and objectives, defnition of 299; infuential motivations and variables, identifying 295–296; infuential variables, identifcation of 302; methodology 296–299; project actors, identifcation of 300–301; project leader, initial objective of 302–307, 303–305, 306; project stakeholders, identifcation of 298–299; qualitative surveys 297; re-analysis of interviews and analysis based on monograph 298; relaxation of constraints 307–309, 308, 309; stakeholders, selection of 301 optimization space 317

PAC see Plan d’Affectation Cantonal PACTE 138, 318 Pajot, C. 296, 321 Pappalardo, M. 5–6, 8, 11, 21, 297 PAR see participatory action research participatory action research (PAR) 193, 197 participatory housing 29 participatory renewable energy, cooperation within and institutionalization of 151–152, 192–209; citizen, public, and private partnership projects 192–209; increase in renewable energy production and demand 200–201; methods 193 passive household 42–43 path dependency 172 “peer-to-peer” approach 23 peer-to-peer communities, digital services for 213–218 peer-to-peer energy trading 255–258 Pellegrino, M. 13 perimeter, setting 137–139 personne morale organisatrice (PMO) 114–116, 121n2 “Pionierkraftwerk” 230 Place au soleil 138 Plan d’Affectation Cantonal (PAC) 92, 94 Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU) 102n5 Plan urbanisme construction architecture (Planning and Construction Architecture Plan) 143n21 platform, as an aggregator 281–285, 284 PLU see Plan Local d’Urbanisme PMO see personne morale organisatrice polycentric governance between stakeholders 204 post-network 3 Pottier, A. 149 Poudou, J.-C. 214, 288n13 Poupeau, F. 127, 128, 140 power distribution 77–78 practice theory 73 Premian PV project 137 pricing 277 procedural justice 106, 111 project actors, identifcation of 300–301

348

Index

project leader, initial objective of 302–307, 303–305, 306 Project vitrine 56–57 prosumerism 112 prosumers 112, 278–286, 300; as fgure of liberal energy transition 131 Proulx, M. 5, 21, 28 public electricity distribution network operator 300 PUCA see Urban Planning and Construction Architecture Plan Pukšec, T. 316 Quebec: cities, decentralized renewable energy in 49–51; co-operative housing model 59; socio-ecological transition 58 Ramirez-Cobo, I. 10, 30 REC see renewable energy communities REDII see European Commission’s updated Renewable Energy Directive Regulated Access to Historic Nuclear Energy (ARENH) 179–181, 188n10 regulation and policy making, role of 259 “regulation guarantor” actors 301 regulatory actors 300 Reis, I.F. 236, 240 renewable energy communities (REC) 118, 214, 220, 260; trajectories of 149, 153–170 Renewable Energy Directive (EU 2018/2001) 117–118, 120, 220, 225, 227, 260, 275, 288n8 renewable energy pooling and sharing, inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to 28, 31–45; analysis 37; designers’ representation with needs analysis, enriching 31; energy for housing 35; in the home 38–40, 38–43; method 35–37; participants 35–36, 36; pragmatic and hedonic user needs 32–33; protocol 37; user needs 32–34; user needs, anticipation of 33–34; users 34–35 REScoop see European Federation of Energy Cooperatives Réseau de Transport d’Electricit (RTE, Electricity Transmission Network) 127, 142n4, 176 Revell, K.M.A. 34 Rifkin, J. 286, 288 “right to the city” 68

Rochet, J.-C. 288n10 Rodler, P. 319 Rogers, E.M. 6 Roosen, J. 229 Rosseto, N. 142n13 RTE see Réseau de Transport d’Electricit (Electricity Transmission Network) scales of sharing, diversity of 9–10 Schema de Coherence Territorial (SCoT) 102n5 Schneiders, A. 214 Schonbeck, H. 20, 21, 23, 213, 214 SCIA see Societe Civile Immobiliere d’Attribution Science and Technology Studies (STS) 126 SCoT see Schema de Coherence Territorial self-consumption into political economy of the grid, diffculties integrating 131–133 self-governance 80 SER see Syndicat des énergies renouvelables shared geothermal energy projects, in Montreal 28–29, 49–64; Celsius project 53–54, 57; collective action space, appropriation and modulation of 54–57, 57; decentralized renewable energy, in Quebec cities 49–51; ecological community housing with local desire for geothermal energy 58; energy community 51–53; geothermal infrastructure, in community housing projects 61–63; green alley for Celsius, constraints and benefts of 57–58; green co-operative creation, reappropriation of collective spaces of action in 59–61; pre-existing collective action space 53–54; social housing co-operatives, as collective spaces of action 58–59 Sheldon, K.M. 33 short-circuit energy development 110–112 Shove, E. 73 Simeone, A. 316 situated knowledge 83n3 “smart grid” paradigm 18–19, 24, 134 Smith, R. 317 “snowball effect” risk 278 sobriety 21–22, 28 social control 75

Index social housing co-operatives, as collective spaces of action 58–59 Societe Civile Immobiliere d’Attribution (SCIA) 71 “Societes cooperatives d’interet collectif ” (Cooperative Societies of Collective Interest, “CSCI”) 173, 176, 178, 187; spin-off of 183–184; status to encourage participation and control proft-making 181–183 sociocracy 77 socio-economic vulnerabilities 110–112 socio-energy assemblage 4 socio-technical agencement 126–127 socio-technical engineering 19; challenges of 19–22 Solon 54–55 Soto, E.A. 271, 272, 277 Souami, T. 3 Soubeyran project 29 Spain 172; CSC as activity of energy communities to maintain localism of exchanges 120; decentralisation of the electricity 117; solar tax 117 spatial proximities 9 Spinoza, B. de 189n20 stakeholders’ motivations, in models of optimization decision support tools 292–293 Stanton, N.A. 34 Strachan, N. 295 street politics 82 STS see Science and Technology Studies Sustainability Transition Studies 88 Syndicat des énergies renouvelables (SER) 128, 133, 137, 139, 142n11 Szuba, M. 3 Tabourdeau, A. 101 Tarif d’utilisation des réseaux public d’électricité (TURPE) 127, 132, 134, 139, 140, 142n2 technical design of on-the-spot renewable energy projects, decision support for 293–294, 313–331; decision support 313–314; industrial waste heat recovery 333–335, 334, 335; mixed-integer linear programming 317; multi-criteria analysis 315–316; multi-stakeholder approach 314–315; OMEGAlpes 317–332; open-source 316 tenant electricity 233–234, 234 territorial anchorage 9 territorial vulnerabilities 110–112

349

TESCOL 143n19, 301 Thévenot, L. 152, 204 THIRD 333 Tirole, J. 288n10 traceability of energy 4 transactive energy 255; in Colombia 258 Transactive Energy Colombia project 274 TransActive Grid, Brooklyn 272–274, 274 transmission system operator (TSO) 127, 135 Triangle Sud 90 Tribout, S. 10, 30 trust 80 Trutnevyte, E. 295 TSO see transmission system operator TURPE see Tarif d’utilisation des réseaux public d’électricité Tyl, B. 149 Uber 271, 275 UFE 140 Uihlein, A. 288n2 UK see United Kingdom Union Sociale pour l’Habitat (Social Housing Union) 139, 143n22 United Kingdom (UK) 61; green energy 267 Universite du Nous 189n21 Urban Planning and Construction Architecture Plan (PUCA) 138 urban projects, anticipating energy communities in 30, 87–103; case studies 88; data analyses 92; selection criteria 89–91 USA 172 van Neste, S. 5, 10, 21, 28 Vasileiadou, E. 51 Verde, S.F. 142n13 Verger, G. 319 virtual energy communities 222 Walker, G. 51 Wenger, E. 88 Weyl, E.G. 288n10 white label 234 Wilkins, D.J. 275 Woolley, E. 315 Wurtz, F. 23 Yalçin-Riollet, M. 3, 297 Zhang, C. 288n4