TERRITORIES AND ENERGY : « WINNERS » AND « LOSERS » ?
Bio fuel in the north, famine in the south: a paradox of energetical transition?
Sofiane BOUHDIBA (Tunis University)
Following the basic principles of sustainable development, developed countries are consuming bio fuels, using vegetable oil (sugar can, palm,…). Normally, the use of bio fuel should make it possible to pursuit the development process by preserving the natural resources of the planet. Paradoxically, this massive use of corn, soja or palm had disastrous effects in Africa. We know today that the “bio fuel boom” was a major cause of rising in the prices of some cereals in Africa. In fact, millions of Africans found themselves in a position where they were no more able to have access to basic food. But in the same time many African government invested in the development of bio fuel products because of the rising demand coming from Europe and the USA. This study examines the paradoxical case of Africa in regard to the development of bio fuel andenergetic transition.
To what extent did bio fuel caused famine riots in some African cities? Is it possible to conciliate between bio fuel and food in the region? Is bio fuel a solution to the African economy? How are governments dealing with multinational biofuel producers settled in their lands? Can Africa follow its energetic transition without risking famine? These are some of the questions to which I will try to find answers in the study.
The research is organized into three sections. The first one reminds the basic principles of the theory linking the energetic transition, and the production and use of bio fuel with the struggle for sustainable development. The second part of the study discusses to what extent the production of bio fuel in Africa has effectively caused famine episodes. The last part of the study proposes a series of realistic recommendations in order to pursuit the production of bio fuel in Africa, and in the same time solving the challenge of poverty and access to food for the more vulnerable populations the region.
KEY WORDS: transition, energy, biofuel, North, South.
Energetic Transition In Algeria:Myth or Reality?
Amina DERRADJI (National School of Political Science / Public Policy, Alger)
Energy is the motor of all human activities; it is a basic need of life, civilization and indispensable to national development.
Algeria is a large area with specific geographicposition, She has a variety of renewable and non-renewable energy resources. Since independence, the country has moved towards the exploitation of fossil fuels in order to ensure her energy supply, but also to finance various development projects. This policy has given rise to an economic dependency of more than 90% tothe oil and gas resources.
The exploitation of these exhaustible and polluting sources requires research of other sustainable sources that protect the environment. In this case, renewable energy is seen as an ideal alternative to a sustainable development framework for Algeria which has an important potential in this area.
In this context, Algeria has launched in 2009 an ambitious program for the exploitation of solar energy in order to replace oil and gas.
could this transition energy policy substitute the energy needs of the population and ensure the financeof Algerian economy, as it was the case after independence ( for the previous policy)? What are the challenges that face this new orientation ?
KEY WORDS: Algeria, fossil energy, solar energy, energetic policy, energetic transition.
Socio-technical and energy transition: the example of biorefineries as positivist myth.
Julie GOBERT (UTT/CREIDD)
Sabrina BRULLOT (UTT/CREIDD)
As officials have noticed that energy transition is impeded not only by technique or engineering, but also sociological issues, more and more public policies dealing with this global transformation at national and local levels have begun to take such issues into account. As a result, new challenges have arisen: new energy organization models ( diverging from centralized networks), as well as a push to involve all stakeholders concerned, and more particularily civil society. Does this evolution imply that new modes of governance are emerging? Or is this major topic of our modern society appropriated by those who are already responsible for making industrial, political and economic decisions?
As we worked on two projects concerning biorefineries (PIVERT and FASE), we would like to use this “object” or socio-technical system to analyze and question the myth of the perfect and continuous industrial evolution. Can territories and stakeholders smoothly adapt to new objectives? In our opinion, as the sociology of expectations (Borup et al. 2006, Levidow et al. 2014) demonstrates, the expectations of some industrial and public officials are often translated into dominant perspectives. However territories and stakeholders can develop tactics to resist, resulting in unforeseen change. Therefore, it seems beneficial to integrate uncertainty in our research.
Meanwhile we are obliged to reconsider the following assumption: energy transition will lead to a deep change in socio-technical systems (of production, supply, and distribution). As a matter of fact, some existing communities or groups are striving to maintain their economic and technical capital and refuse to question their choices, (or just in the margins.) – je ne comprends pas la fin de ce dernière phrase…
It’s interesting to see that agriculture and forestry are integrated as suppliers of biomass, but not really as social and political systems which could have their own and independent strategies. Changes in land use, or ecosystemic changes or the necessary evolution of professional skills are not properly investigated, because they are considered natural developments. The objective for industrial officials is to obtain affordable biomass of high quality, and not to help other stakeholders structure their supply chains.
In fact, the development and promotion of biomass transformation often results in restricted discussion between experts, firms and public officials. Yet the will to create “countryside biorefineries”, anchored in their (siting)?? area, shows some differences between “epistemic communities” and “communities of practices”. This demonstrates the degree of independence that can exist for a more democratic and less centralized energy transition.
KEY WORDS: biorefineries, community of practices, territories, energy transition.
Hydroelectricity and ecological continuity : cross-analysis of representations and conflicts related to environment and energy.
Jacques-Aristide PERRIN (Limoges University/Géolab)
Conceptuals (Loupsans, 2011 ; Bouleau et Pont, 2014) and managing conflicts (Barreau et Germaine, 2013) arise in scientific field and territories caused by supposed incompatibility between the Water Framework Directive (2000) and key element of European Union Climate and Energy package (2008). To shed light on these questions drawing upon to French field experience, the example of ecological continuity of river is meaningful : this type of restoration aims to enable the aquatic life and sediment transport in rivers in relation to insurmountable obstacles for aquatic organisms that must be capable of moving freely to access the zones required for their reproduction, growth and feeding. This key concept of sustainable management of river (Morandi et Piégay, 2014) caused many problems : scientific controversies about his construct validity and monitoring indicators, moreover conflicts between the compliance with laws and standards and the hydroelectricity producers (small and big companies holders of dam concessions (Catalon in the ESAWADI project, 2014).
The analysis of this type of confliction fit, admittedly into conciliation between environment and energy production but mostly in socio-energetic process whose followed multiple representations related environment and energy, at the root of territorial socio-energetic imaginary (Raineau, 2008). The speech focuses on the interaction of actors (Territorial public institution basin, hydroelectricity producers, civil society…) to grasp how practices change potentially starting projects of initial policy (Fouilleux, 2000) and identify conditions of the implementing ethic about feeling of belonging to territory as frame as accepted and consensual energy transition.
KEY WORDS: hydroelectricity, WFD, confliction, ethic about feeling of belonging to territory, subsidiarity.
Pipes socioeconomic population to the crisis of electrical energy in Cameroon Douala.
Robert TEFE TAGNE (Douala-Cameroun University/ Sociology Laboratory of Human Resource Management)
Jacques YOMB (Douala-Cameroun University/ Sociology Laboratory of Human Resource Management)
Access to electricity is a major problem in Cameroon and Douala in particular. The main objective of this research is to account for socio-economic behavior of urban households facing the crisis of electric power in urban Cameroon. The central issue of the problem is this: Despite the large energy potential of Cameroon why urban households do they face a crisis of electric power to the point of developing parallel strategies sometimes insecure supply? The theoretical framework is mobilized in this work gives a prominent place to methodological individualism and social constructivism. The methodology is based on a qualitative approach that values ethnography field. In a comprehensive perspective, it deals from the content analysis, qualitative data collected through dominance documentary sources and semi-structured interviews with households and the company in charge of the distribution of energy power in Cameroon. The results show that: a) the crisis of power stems from a poor use of the energy potential of the country and poor policy choices related to the management of the company in charge of distribution. b) more power outages persist, most actors develop strategies to access energy. c) some strategies are illegal dealing in particular with the fraudulent connections while others are part of innovation through the adoption of new alternative energy sources such as solar.
KEY WORDS: pipes socioeconomics, urbans Households, energical Crisis, alternative supply, Douala-Cameroon.
ENERGY ISSUES AND THE STRUCTURE OF TERRITORY(-IES)
Energy consumption in France’s housing stock until 2050 for four prospective scenarios.
Amira BENTAHAR (GDF SUEZ/CRIGEN)
The energy performance improvement for existing and new buildings has become one of the major concerns for energy efficiency policies. The local, regional, French and European political authorities are all concerned by this question. This subject is complex due to the large number of parameters that affect energy consumption of residential buildings (quality of buildings, behaviour of inhabitants…). Various instruments can be used to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, such as awareness campaigns, incentives or obligations. Prospective simulations are a good tool to understand the role of each action on future energy consumption.
Within this framework, the CRIGEN, research centre of GDF SUEZ, has developed a forward-looking tool (« OPERA Résidentiel) for calculating energy consumption of the French housing stock until 2050. It gives an idea of the impact of policy measures and behaviour of occupants. Numerous parameters are taken into consideration, including the rate and types of building refurbishment, the rebound effect after a refurbishment, the need of new construction, the penetration of very efficient energy systems, the use of household equipments.
The CRIGEN realized a prospective exercise leading to four scenarios of global geopolitical situation, French policy, and customs of French society. These scenarios were quantitatively modelled in the GDF SUEZ tool « OPERA » to study their impacts on energy consumption of the French housing stock.
The diversity of outcomes shows the preponderant influence of the political and societal organization on energy consumption of the housing stock.
KEY WORDS: prospective, residential sector, behaviour, uses, energy consumption.
Four energy infra-urban coordination’s scenarii: cooperative, local authorities, Central Administration, big companies.
Nicolas BUCLET (Grenoble Alpes University/UMR PACTE)
Gilles DEBIZET (Grenoble Alpes University /UMR PACTE)
Caroline GAUTHIER (Grenoble School managment)
Stéphane LA BRANCHE (Grenoble Alpes University /UMR PACTE)
Philippe MENANTEAU (Grenoble Alpes University /UMR PACTE)
Patrice SCHNEUWLY (INES/CEA)
Long term objectives have been established for renewable energy production. It mobilizes geographically dispersed resources, but also intermittent sources such as wind or solar energy. In order to fill the time gap between consumption and production, national as well as European policies explore two paths: one based on a subsidized market for power production capacities aiming to fill the gap; one based on the temporary erasing of consumer’s demand through economic incentives and regulation.
In a scheme mixing the role of suppliers and consumers – for instance through the constraint to realize positive energy buildings – we put the question in another way: buildings and thinnest components of energy networks might be places enhancing the management of a better balance between supply and demand at a local level. Such a “management” could not be the business of a sole energy operator. It rather supposes an infra-urban energy coordination, co-managed by the actors of the transforming of built spaces and/or new conventions between these actors.
Big companies, local authorities, centralized administration, but also some cooperative movements are experimenting and try to play the main role at the heart of new energy management devices and of the co-construction of urban energy systems. Within the NEXUS project funded by ADEME, a pluridisciplinary research team has elaborated infra-urban energy scenario differing on coordination aspects. One scenario gives to one of the four identified categories of actors a central and dominating role in the process. The methodology is based on the notion of socio-energetic nodes: energy supply chains distributing, transforming and stocking energy within urban spaces are elaborated through the assemblage of technical systems driven by different kind of actors.
This communication will present scenario and will expose the interdisciplinary methodology combining political sciences, economics, technological sciences, management and urban planning.
KEY WORDS: energy network, city, assembly, distributed generation, regulation.
Bottom-up decentralization of energy policy: how local governments try to extend their leverage on public policies.
Marie DEGREMONT-DORVILLE (CNRS/Political Science/Sociology of organizations Center)
New dynamics are challenging the electricity sector as built through the 20th century, especially since the 1946 law of nationalization (Evrard, 2010). Its technical and administrative structure as well as its institutions rely on economies of scale and a centralized management (Poupeau, 2008), while the cumulative effects of the decentralization of French institutions, the liberalization of the electricity sector and environmental policies favor the development of local energy policies.
Indeed, since the liberalization of this sector, more players, like local governments, enter the market. New energy policies call for the development of renewable power productions, which are partly decentralized, and energy efficiency is by essence performed on a local scale. Moreover, as more public policies are performed at a local level, local authorities are now responsible of important choices regarding local energy mixes and the management of energy demand.
This communication aims to better understand how theses policies lead to a reorganization of the scales and means of public intervention. It shows that when local authorities coordinate their action at a regional scale, they tend to gain leverage in the political system.
To support their call for more decentralization, they frame electricity as a political issue. They use their achievements in this area, like their ability to ensure the economic development of their constituency, to put in place local projects, to build consensus around a shared vision of the future of their territory (Genieys, 1997), to create local capabilities (Ritaine, 1997), to support leaders that can structure these processes and help broaden their reach (Nay and Smith, 2002) to strengthen their influence and political power.
This communication is based on a research made in the Nord-Pas de Calais administrative region in 2013-14 and on an extensive literature review. It rests on primary written sources that put into perspective local quantitative data. Around forty semi-directive interviews have been made with project managers and political leaders along with participant studies. Previous studies on the French national debate on the energy transition and on the energy transition law of 2014 have been used to put this work into context.
KEY WORDS: governance, local governments, public policies, energy, decentralization.
Energy local public utilities, tools of which urban energy governance ?
Pauline GABILLET (École des Ponts -ParisTech/LATTS)
The agenda setting of energy issues implies the local scale valorization, and more particularly of cities, because of the energy consumption concentration in urban territories (Hodson and Marvin 2010; Rutherford and Coutard 2014; Bulkeley, Castan Broto and Marvin (eds.) 2010). In this framework, some researches interrogate the nature of this interaction between cities and energy. Is this interaction strictly related to the energy agenda setting by cities (urbanization) or are we observing a real territorialization at the urban scale, i.e. a new organization of power in favor of cities (Jaglin and Dubresson 2013; Jaglin and Verdeil 2013; Poupeau 2013) ?
Following on from this question, we are studying the case of two French cities owning local public utilities. For more than a century; Grenoble and Metz municipalities own (and today are major shareholder) of local public utilities – respectively GEG and UEM – which are supplying electricity in their territory, but also gas in Grenoble and district heating in Metz. This articulation between city and operators organization scale appears as a major lever of urban energy policy.
In a first moment, we will analyze the reality of cities’ owning local public utilities leeway. The electricity regulation that applies to these local operators remains mainly national and thus cities have only a few regulation levers of their operator. In a second moment, by analyzing the international functioning of municipalities, we will study the way cities are using their tools and their steering capacity. This will help us to characterize the interactions between cities and local public utilities and the urban energy governance.
KEY WORDS: local public utilities, urban public action, urban energy policy, political-administrative system.
Heating the city with companies’ waste heat: a non-linear conception of the urban energy provision challenged by local dynamics. Two case studies in Dunkirk and Marne-la-Vallée.
Zélia HAMPIKIAN (École des Ponts ParisTech /LATTS)
The official positions promoting an energy transition encourage the use of recovered energy (heat recovered from a process that does not aim at producing energy) as much as renewable energies, and sometimes in priority. A concrete translation of this consideration is, in particular, the implementation of technical systems that recover waste heat produced by private companies that do not belong to the energy sector (primarily chemical or metal industries and data centers). This energy, that would be dissipated in the atmosphere if not recovered, is then distributed to consumers through a district network. An unusual material and organizational configuration is thus created. The parties involved in such sociotechnical systems, let them be the company de facto energy provider, the local public authorities, the district network operator or the consumers, have different interests that translate into different and sometimes unstable relations with the territory to which they belong. This instability is, in particular, translated into concrete questions asked by stakeholders themselves (for instance, what becomes of the system if the company relocates?) that encourage to look closely at the sociotechnical functioning of such systems.
In this communication, we propose to analyze the interplay of the various stakeholders that underlies the implementation of such energy solutions. Indeed, the energy flows come with financial flows, investments and contractual agreements that contribute to create specific relations between the involved parties and that have never been investigated in a research agenda. Nevertheless, they bring a series of questions that are directly related to the social, political and organisational stakes of energy transitions, to which we try to answer: how are the gains and risks of such systems shared between stakeholders? How are the economic, material and organizational dynamics that drive the various involved parties taken into account? Who are the involved stakeholders and why? What role do the local public authorities play in the initiation, functioning and sustainability? How do they make them work – or not – with local spatial and economic planning?
We base our reasoning on the thorough analysis of two contrasted French pioneer cases: heat recovery on the blast furnaces of the ArcelorMittal metallurgical plant in Dunkirk and heat recovery on the cooling units of a data center in Marne-la-Vallée, on the Val d’Europe area. The analysis is based on the use of interviews conducted with the various stakeholders, and institutional, legal and technical documentation.
KEY WORDS: recovered energy ; waste heat ; socio-technical system ; Dunkirk ; Marne-la-Vallée.
Smart grids experimentations between territorialization and international strategies. The case of smart communities in Japan.
Nicolas LEPRETRE (ENS of Lyon/Institute of Eastern Asia)
The recent development of smart grids and decentralized energy production through renewable energies highlight new energy strategies among industrial countries (Coutard & Rutherford, 2009). In order to manage and reduce energy consumption and production, smart grids can have an impact on the actors’ coordination, with the rise of information and communications technologies (ICT) firms, but also local governments. Putting the energy stake on the local agenda not only meets the needs of local actors in terms of revitalization of territories, but also bolsters companies to face international standards’ competition. It is therefore fruitful to question the coordination forms chosen to cope with these multi-scale challenges.
As smart grids are still a new challenge in France, it is noteworthy to look at foreign cases. Experimentations in Japan, where smart communities have been tested since 2010, can shed a light on technological choices and organizational practices (Mah et alii, 2013) that could to be imported in Europe. A comparative study of the cities of Yokohama, Kitakyushu Toyota and the scientific city of Kyoto Keihanna can illustrate the diversity of the governance of the projects according to local stakes. Through a seven months field study and forty interviews carried on, this communication will try to contribute to the debates on the sociology of the energy in two ways.
First, I will study the neoliberal (Poupeau, 2013) and technical (Souami, 2009) referential of actors involved in the projects, as well as international standards’ strategies, setting the smart meter up as a technical solution to foster (Klopfert & Wallenborn, 2011). Second, through the analysis of case studies, I will explain the governance of the experimentations, stressing on the importance of local economic stakes, but also on the difficulty of some local governments in positioning themselves as actors of the projects. The ambiguous role of electric companies, the key role of the project leader and the marginalization of actors such as non-profit organizations, academics and inhabitants will also be highlighted. This communication will conclude on the limits of the territorialization of energy issues in Japan, and will propose some key observations in comparison with European context.
KEY WORDS : smart grid, territorialization, international standards, local experimentations, Japan.
The university campuses: territories in energy transition? A local case study put in international perspective.
Sophie NEMOZ (Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University/ International Centre for Research in Ecological Economics)
At a time when the academic research takes over the issue of « energy transition », multiplying scientific conferences and publications in many disciplines under this heading, the purpose of this paper is to explore the actions of research and higher education institutions on their own territories. The investigation starts from a sociological research carried out in the project named « Smart Campus ». Launched in 2012 by the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, the implementation of a smart grid promises to connect locally the renewable energy production to the consumption of buildings and to the energy demand for an electric car sharing service which is available on different sites of the University. If this institution aims at becoming « a living laboratory » for energy transition, it turns out however that the experiment has been adjourned during the summer of 2014. Regarding the sociotechnical changes linked to energy, such a case study raises the question of the favourable nature assigned to the university environment.
The search for elements to answer is currently conducted on an international scale. Firstly, it enables to broaden the debate by examining to what extent new policies call for a territorialization of energy transition in campuses. The analysis of instruments and representations that circulate among various levels of public action will then be compared with the first results of a questionnaire survey targetting several hundreds of universities around the world. In addressing the energy issue within their territorial practices, this approach seeks to bring a new perspective on the competencies decentralized to academic communities and on the challenges identified through a reflective process.
KEY WORDS: universities, energy policies, territorial practices, local monograph, international survey.
Toxic Infrastructures: Motorways, Onshore Wind and the Liability of Oldness.
Cameron ROBERTS (University of Manchester/Institute of Innovation Research)
Miles TEN BRINKE (University of Manchester/Institute of Innovation Research)
Marc HUDSON (University of Manchester/Institute of Innovation Research)
The notion of a liability of newness has become so taken for-granted in transitions theory as to be one of the founding ideas of the discipline. There is good reason for this. New technologies initially lack much of the institutional and cognitive support they need to compete with incumbents. However, too much emphasis on this can lead to a blindness towards the ways in which established technologies might suffer or cause problems for both their owners and wider society from their oldness. This is especially so for technologies requiring complex infrastructures, as it becomes increasingly difficult to commit the resources to expand these infrastructures as public and investor enthusiasm for them wanes.
Toxic infrastructures are infrastructures which, though part of a dominant socio-technical configuration, have encountered significant opposition. In the early phases of a transition, when a niche innovation begins to compete with the dominant system, hype and visions of the future can help niche actors coordinate resources to develop their innovation (Alkemade and Suurs, 2012). One such resource is the willingness to build new infrastructure. After an innovative technology has existed for some time, however, this enthusiasm declines, meaning that its problems and unintended consequences can stand out more dramatically than they had previously, and opponents can gain credibility. This loss of enthusiasm can hurt a regime or accumulating niche’s ability to expand.
This paper will illustrate the process by which infrastructures become toxic through two case studies: motorways and onshore wind power in the United Kingdom. During their early history, motorways were the subject of fascinated and enthusiastic press coverage, but they had become mundane by the 1970s, and faced active political opposition during the 1980s and 1990s. In the case of onshore wind, while it was initially a source of excitement as part of a low-carbon energy future, support diminished as wind farms were built, and gave way to concerns about aesthetics and the financial returns to local communities. As a result British wind power is increasingly moving offshore (Toke, 2011).
These two case studies indicate a transition dynamic which can either create openings for niche innovations to move forward, or force a technological system to redefine itself. The implication is that technological
momentum might be difficult to maintain perpetually, at least in its political and cultural elements. This is an important consideration for ex ante analysis, transitions studies and management.
KEY WORDS : toxic-infrastructure, stranded-assets, visions, niche, regime.
Conditions for the implementation of the energy transition in urban development projects: a case study analysis. Paris Rive Gauche, Paris Nord Est and Clichy-Batignolles (Paris, France).
Charlotte TARDIEU (Université Lille 1/Ecole des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris/TVES).
In the context of rising energy costs and the fight against climate change, cities have a role to play in the energy transition. Urban development projects provide an excellent opportunity to design energy and carbon efficient cities since they enable to consider the relationship between a set of urban objects consuming and producing energy. Our review of the scientific literature has indeed revealed the existence of urban and architectural levers that can be activated during an urban project to reduce energy needs of cities and promote the use of renewable energies.
If sustainable design and labeling processes of buildings are well documented, little research describe practices of urban project’s holders to ensure high energy quality of buildings and districts. We therefore propose to compare three urban large-scale projects led by the City of Paris: Paris Rive Gauche, Clichy-Batignolles and Paris Nord Est. Through a qualitative and comparative approach, we seek to understand actors’ interactions, to highlight the spatio-temporal logics and identify the design parameters used to ensure the energy quality of the projects. Our analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with the actors in these three urban projects, and all the technical documents we could access.
After describing how energy issues have been taken into account in each of the three urban projects, we compare the procedures and actions that have been implemented. Based on our comparative analysis, we can argue that energy issues are not considered as strategic elements of the urban development process. When energy targets are defined, they are only political will without any technical consistency. In other words, there is no performance assessment or monitoring process planned. Actions set up are mainly focused on the reduction of buildings’ energy demand, ignoring other potential energy savings in street lighting or mobility. The energy performance of buildings is ensured through a relatively conventional procedure of environmental quality. However, covering energy needs of new districts by local renewable energies constitutes an important factor of change in the urban development practices. Urban developers need now to consider urban areas as potentially producers of energy instead of place of energy consumption only. This study leads us to question the right scale to the definition and implementation of an energy strategy for the urban fabric as well as the best actor to coordinate this action.
KEY WORDS: energy transition, cities, urban development project, interviews, actors.
LOCAL ACTORS AND ENERGY TRANSITION
The improvement of energy performance of individual housing. The challenge of coordinating the existing actions.
Sylvère ANGOT (École des Ponts ParisTech/LATTS).
The improvement of energy performance of individual housing is one of the key notions of « energy transition ». Moreover, it represents a considerable investment for many public institutions.
National policy instruments toward individuals were launched by different ministries: « Sustainable Development Tax Credit » and « Eco-loan 0% » represent several billion Euros on the last 5 years, invested by Ministries of Ecology and of Finance (Vauglin 2011). Other examples include the “Habiter mieux” programme (€500 million per year) of the National Agency for Housing Improvement (ANAH) and the “Espaces Info Energie” of the National Agency for Environment and Energy Saving (ADEME). Energy efficiency has a potential for emergence as public scope that Ministries of Ecology and of Housing are looking to invest.
At the local level, local authorities declined these measures (via eg “Planned home improvement operations”, OPAH). They also consider energy efficiency as a big issue and develop, often with local partners, their own additional aid, information, incentive, planning actions or call for projects. These include Climate-Energy Territorial Plans, General interest programs, Public service initiatives in energy efficiency, etc.
This also raises the question of the coordination of these programs. Based on a qualitative study in two French regions, we focus on the conditions for the emergence of a regional coordination of these policies by the Regional Directorates of Environment (DREAL). While these decentralised state services were profoundly remodeled since 2010 (Poupeau 2011), agents must position themselves in an original way as coordinators and reinvent the legitimacy of state intervention in the territories. DREAL appear first in line for the implementation of national systems, while having to articulate their actions with local authorities and local branches of State Agencies (Benamouzig, Besançon, 2010). Plan Contracts State-Region (CPER) or Regional Schemes Climate-Air-Energy (SRCAE) can be mobilized in this direction.
Our study leads us to conclude on the following points. The difficulty to coordinate these programs and to consider really a public policy of energy home improvements. The difficulty of decentralised services to develop new professional skills (including coordination) in a context of reduced budgetary allocations. The importance of local actors’ configurations in the implementation of these actions.
KEY WORDS : energy efficiency, housing improvement, decentralised State services, independent administrative agencies, décentralisation, public policies coordination.
Energy Transition in Rural Area: the Territorialization of Wind Farms Projects in Champagne-Ardenne Region.
Céline BURGER (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne/IATEUR).
The competences in energy policies are more and more delegated at the territorial level, consequently they became big issues for local policies. This new competences are an opportunity for local authorities to promote local development. Indeed, they integrate the renewable energy projects in their innovation and attractiveness policies. Consequently, the local community became an indispensable support of national energy policies, as the Champagne-Ardenne Region who qualifies the “renewable energy” as “picking winners”. So, the Region forms part of superior level obligation in term of energy transition governance and innovation. In this Region, the wind power development was very sustained by local authorities, as reflected by a massive implementation of wind farms. It raises questions about territorialization. In fact, wind farm projects are implanted in rural area (micro-level), upset the balance of local planning in their territories. This effective planning is questioned in term of sustainability. Wind energy policies in Champagne-Ardenne Region are constrained by different decisions scales and asymmetric relations among stakeholders. What can emerge about these political strategies, at the local level, on sustainable development? The Region develops a new renewable model based of wind farms development, to create “territorial sustainable projects”. This type of projects required cooperation and communication between stakeholders. However, the increase of financialization in planning projects, and particularly in energy’s infrastructures projects, undermines the process of negotiation and to energy transition.
KEY WORDS: energy Transition, territorial sustainable development, local governance, wind farm, territorialization.
Weight of the Past, Future Challenges: Temporalities of Environmental Action in a Former Mining Town (Pas-de-Calais, France).
Laure DOBIGNY (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University/CETCOPRA).
Loos-en-Gohelle, municipality within the coalfield area of Pas-de-Calais, both rural and urban, dense and agricultural, implements many innovative actions in the field of climate and energy in a very specific context : an heavy industrial past with economic, social, environmental and urban planning implications. Self-proclaimed “pilot city for sustainable development”, since 1997 Loos-en-Gohelle is developing an ambitious environmental and social policy, which aims to be a city “test” and innovation lab. Constrained both by its past and future energy and climate issues, their local policy inscribes itself in a specific temporality : the (very) long-term. This is a break through conventional political timelines, in particular a break from the short-term approach of coal mining.
By studying two current rehabilitation projects, Réhafutur and RéhabLoos, one relating to the rehabilitation of mining habitat (social housing) with the criteria for BBC label (Low Consumption Building) and eco-materials, and the other on the rehabilitation of a private residential area, we will see the different time scales of political, technical, socio-professional and normative processes, of representations and innovation. We will show that emerging projects are not only inherited from previous long-term process but are themselves constructed, not for immediate effectiveness, but to initiate processes whose effects will be felt in a long time.
The specificity of Loos-en-Gohelle, through its construction as a showcase for sustainable development – construction in and for long-term – is a normative constraint in innovation and new projects to stay a “pilot city”. Nevertheless it proves to be an effective way to (re) create local economic, environmental and social dynamics in a region where these issues are enormous challenges.
KEY WORDS : temporality, mining habitat, rehabilitation, heritage, environmental policy.
Nova Scotia’s Energy Transition: Ecological Modernization and Energy Security in a Coal-Powered Canadian Province.
Anders HAYDEN ( Dalhousie University).
Although Canada as a whole has done little to move beyond a carbon-based economy, some Canadian provinces have begun a low-carbon energy transition, including the surprising case of Nova Scotia. Ecological modernization theory suggests that climate action offers “win-win” economic opportunities (or what Giddens refers to as convergence between climate and economic objectives). However, compared to other jurisdictions that have linked green-energy strategies to strengthening their well-developed manufacturing sectors, Nova Scotia has less capacity to capture the industrial-expansion opportunities. In addition, among the ten Canadian provinces, Nova Scotia has the fourth highest per-capita carbon emissions and second lowest per-capita incomes. It therefore faces particular difficulties in dealing with the upfront costs of a green-energy transition. How does one explain Nova Scotia’s introduction of relatively strong climate and green-energy policy? In addition, what key opportunities and obstacles is the province facing in achieving its objectives? This paper will argue that Nova Scotia’s energy insecurity—particularly its vulnerability to rising costs of imported fossil energy—has been a powerful motivator that compensates for other difficulties in making the economic case for new green-energy investments. Nova Scotia thus differs from most Canadian provinces and instead resembles some European states, where energy-security concerns have been a key force behind renewable-energy development. However, the province still faces obstacles in reconciling economic, environmental, and energy-security objectives. These obstacles include the double-edged role of public concern over rising electricity rates (which has driven the search for alternatives to fossil fuels, but also limited the ability to gain support for the initial costs of green-energy investments). A wider political coalition supporting green energy, one that extends beyond large private firms to include rural and coastal communities, is also needed. The paper is based on semi-structured interviews and an analysis of documents from actors involved in the province’s energy policy debate, including government ministries, politicians and political parties, business, and environmental groups.
KEY WORDS: ecological modernization, renewable energy, energy security, Nova Scotia, Canada.
City and Energy – a dialogue to be developed between local authorities and local stakeholders.
Sylvie LACASSAGNE (Energy Cities)
Stéphane DUPAS (Energy Cities)
In Europe, many local authorities are engaging in policies to reduce their greenhouse emissions, increase energy efficiency and promote renewable energies.
In practice, we observe that some areas are very difficult to tackle. Transport, household energy consumption, « grey » energy contained in consumption goods are linked to a particular lifestyle. They are also very difficult to quantify. In those areas, resistance to change seems very strong.
What leverage points exist to enable a change at this level? What experiences were observed? Are there studies enabling us to make new proposals?
It is essential to revisit the bottom-up approach that would link the cities to the national and European decision-making levels. The most micro levels (individuals, households, businesses, associations…) have to be taken into consideration in the governance as well. Local authorities need to take into consideration at the same time the necessary changes to be made, and to listen to societal aspirations and social evolutions.
Cities cannot act alone. The collaboration between decision-making levels brings institutional responses in the context of multi-level governance. Yet, cities, although they are the closest institutional level to citizens, are still far away from societal concerns.
What role can cities play to address this gap? How can they boost new territorial governance modes where people, individual or the organized civil society, have a role to play in co-building and managing the city and seize the opportunity to become responsible for their own future?
IMAGINE initiated by Energy Cities, allowed to launch a dialogue process in 8 European cities and develop local Energy roadmaps 2050 at territorial level.
KEY WORDS: dialogue, city, stakeholders, governance, energy.
The agricultural methanization. Analysis of an emergent industry and territorial dynamics.
Elodie MERLE (EDF/R&D/GRETS)
The methanization is a shape of emergent decentralized power production which offers circular economy opportunies. Still in its infancy in France, object of scientific uncertainties relative to its process and controversies within the agricultural world, it wa recently stimulated by national public policies such as the Plan Energy Methanization Antonomy Nitrogen in 2013. It consists in making of the biogas from the degradation of organic matters stemming from the agricultural world.
We analyse the emergence of a sector in France and the way it articulates in the policies and social movements, with regard to the games of scale between levels macro (national policies), mezzo (what it happens in regions) and micro (local dynamics around projects).
The methanization divides the agricultural world, diverting it from its feeder vocation, but also the ecologist circles, shared between the benefits which it promises in term of circular economy and the way it transforms the peasant world, and elected representatives on territories, between waiting-game and voluntarism. How does the sector constitute from these divisions? What difficulties cross the developers who wish to seize locally a tool of top down policies?
Formed in the political sciences and in the sociology (ScPo, EHESS), Elodie Merle is at present a researcher to EDF R&D, in a department turned to the analysis of markets. Her research focuses on the territorial dimension of the energy, through the successive study of various objects being situated between the market, the social movements and the policies.
KEY WORDS: methanization, territories, policies, industry, games of scale.
Setting up a public utility approach to enhance energy financing in housing : at heart of energy and local public policies.
Françoise REFABERT(Vesta Conseil&Finance)
Loïc AUBRÉE (Catholic University of Lille/CRESGE)
The communication will be based on a research conducted in the frame of the « Fighting against Climate Change » programme lead by Ademe and Nord-Pas de Calais Region, regarding the design of a Local Public Utility Approach for Energy efficiency (Service Public de l’Efficacité Energétique – SPEE), as well as an experimental setting-up of the same scheme by Picardie Region.
Starting with an analysis of constraints observed through interviews with individual owners, the objective was to work on the prefiguration of the service in a specific context, which implied to select territories and actors willing to enter into such a process.
As a matter of fact, professionals from Lille Métropole and Saint-Omer participated to the research, as well as the team in charge of the 100 000 housing Plan (Plan 100 000 logements) at Nord-Ile de France region.
In parallel, Picardie Region lead its own project, and created the SPEE and an In-house structure controled by the Region (régie régionale), and obtained the support from ELENA technical assistance programme of European Investment Bank.
In the meantime, the principle of Public Service application to the energy efficiency refurbishment activities has been introduced in the Code of Energy in April 2013 (Service Public de la Performance Energétique) and should be further characterized when the upcoming law regarding Energy Transition and Green Growth will be enforced (projet de loi sur la Transition Energétique et la Croissance Verte).
This kind of scheme, developed by local authorities, aims at inducing households to enter into energy efficiency works consistent with the local authority’s objectives in terms of climate policy.
In order to work out an attractive offer for housholds, these public schemes have to endorse a « trusted advisor » position, which may be strengthened thanks to the fact that the service continues to be delivered after the refurbishment works with a follow-up of energy consumptions, in a context where households have little control over defective works today. In addition, these public schemes have to ease access to an adapted financing, which is the most difficult barrier to overcome in order to make the works projects become reality.
On-the-field experimentations show how a public utility approach allows to impulse actors. Without the involvment of local authorities, the energy refurbishments market, which is so complex and fragmented, tends to deliver poorly coordinated and only partially performed works programs, which seldom allow to avoid energy downgrading of existing housing.
We propose to expose how a balanced economic model may be achieved, based on a remuneration for service rendered paid by the beneficiaries and financed together with the refurbishment costs over long term, and thus, to concentrate usage of public subsidies for most vulnerable households.
KEY WORDS: energy efficiency, housing refurbishment, local public policies.
Public lighting as revealing the relationship between public administration and citizens.
Yann VUYLSTEKE (University of Nantes/ François Viète Center)
Dominique PÉCAUD (University of Nantes/ François Viète Center)
The communication deals with the dynamics of citizens’ appropriation about issues related to consumption of public lighting energy. It emphasizes the analysis of public action, in terms of the energy consumption and the reduction of electricity consumption from street lighting in a large city from western France. Moreover, this analysis focuses on users’ representations about public lighting and electricity consumption related to this service.
It establishes the device of relationship between policies of public lighting, technical features and urban people behaviour regarding to local public action. The analysis of interactions in this device demonstrates that the involvement of citizens is limited.
There are various reasons to this divestment.
One of it is a missing of technical knowledge concerning the organization and operation of street lighting. Another reason is related to the social and technical configurations in which the users don’t consider public lighting as a common good, and they have no control on the electrical system and they haven’t knowledge about it.
Public policies of lighting builds a definition of public spaces and their uses that influence the users’ perception about public lighting. In the same time, the analysis of the behaviour of users influence policy actions in public spaces, even if users directly claim little things for lighting public.
Balance occurs: on the one hand, users distant about decisions energy of public spaces, the other, a political administration strengthened to operate alone in those areas.
This communication explain the complexity of the different configurations of public policy, of their technical, political and social impacts, accentuated by the diversity of actors involved in the whole process of operation of street lighting.
KEY WORDS: public lighting, public policy, appropriation citizens, electricity consumption reduction, divestment.
Intermediation as social innovation and strategy for local energy transitions
Pia LABORGNE (Europäisches Institut für Energieforschung, Allemagne)
The urban socio-technical energy system is a key field for coping with environmental changes and for a sustainable development of cities. Its forms and usages are decisive for resource consumption, but it also has important impacts on social and economic development. Cities are major context for the consumption of resources as well as centers for innovation and privileged level for experimentation and implementation of new approaches for problem solving. They are thus important starting points for sustainability transitions.
These transitions are only in part technical ones but essentially embedded in, based on and consisting of changes in social practices and in the organization of societal problem solving. These changes can be described as social innovations. The paper proposes a theoretical as well as empirical analysis of one central form of organizational change in local energy transition strategies: The creation of local intermediaries, defined by their function and position in-between other actors.
The presentation builds on findings from the work on a PhD thesis realized in the framework of an interdisciplinary researcher group on urban infrastructures (2010-2014) at the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Freiburg. It is applying the multilevel perspective which analyses transformations as interplay of three different levels: landscape, regime and niches. The thesis intends to enhance the empirical basis on local transformations and analyses what kind of and how local niche-experiments are created locally. Following Konrad et al (2004) such niches are defined here as new configurations of structural elements.
Case studies in major urban regions have been realized (Berlin, Frankfurt/Main and Ruhr Metropolis). The results are based on the analysis of semi-structured qualitative interviews with local actors and experts, a literature study, official documents and a media analysis.
KEY WORDS:
INSTRUMENTS OF PUBLIC POLICY
An instrument « overflowed by design : re§considering the dynamics of feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic electricity.
Béatrice COINTE (CNRS/CIRED)
In France as in several European countries, feed-in tariffs have been the main driver of the recent deployment of grid-connected photovoltaics. This type of economic incentive applied to photovoltaics has triggered a dramatic increase in installed photovoltaic capacity and has entailed difficulties with the management and regulation of these booming new markets. The 2010 moratorium on feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic electricity in France is an example of such trouble.
Relying on actor-network theory works on market-making and politicisation, as well as on an analysis of the materiality of photovoltaic technologies, this communication will offer an alternative reading of feed-in tariffs as applied to photovoltaics. To this end, it will draw on the results from three case studies, each of which shed light on specific aspects and tensions of feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic electricity understood as political prices: the emergence and sophistication of feed-in tariffs for photovoltaics in the context of European renewable energy policy; the overflowing of the photovoltaic market that they provoked and the political crisis that ensued in France between 2009 and 2012; and the way in which they can be seized as instruments for territorial development and translated into economic and political resources. The communication will show that feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic electricity can be described as political market agencements meant to trigger the deployment of electricity generation capacities as much as to foster innovation and experimentation around photovoltaic technologies. The articulation of this dual aim is delicate, especially since the modularity of photovoltaic technologies enables them to proliferate and spread rapidly, making their deployment hard to steer. This re-interpretation of feed-in tariffs will thus suggest ways to account for and analyse the difficulties in regulating current photovoltaic markets.
KEY WORDS: feed-in tariffs, photovoltaics, market agencements, innovation, political prices.
Energy renovation of condominiums in France : The development of public policy observed from a national co-owners association.
Sylvaine LE GARREC (ARC/sociologist)
Representing more than a quarter of French housing, condominiums are an issue that can’t be ignored to reach saving energy target. However, in this sphere of housing, energy efficiency work comes up against specific difficulties. Indeed, in condominiums, renovation projects are necessarily a product of a collective decision and co-owners – and managing agents that advice them – don’t have the skills to implement ambitious upgrading programmes.
In the face of these problems, new policy tools were created, notably subsidies and the obligation for condominiums with central heating to carry out an energy audit. Putting energy efficiency on their agenda, local governments also developed experimentations to promote energy renovation of condominiums.
Meeting condominiums specific issues, energy management policies brought about the emergence of new actors and new local and national networks. In interface between field experiences and national policies development, these networks contribute to create and circulate new methods to help condominiums to implement energy renovation projects. These approaches revisit professional practices, invent new professions and question public action categories of energy management policies.
This paper proposes to report these process from the privileged observation point that I occupied for three year working as a sociologist in a co-owners national association, named Association des Responsables de Copropriété (ARC), which plays an important part in building networks and creating tools to favour energy renovation of condominiums.
KEY WORDS : public action, condominiums, co-ownership, housing, renovation.
Dynamic Modelling of Cost Systems (DMCS): social economy, non-material performance contracting, and heterodox accounting, applied to energy transition.
Clément MORLAT (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – UVSQ / Centre REEDS – Recherche en Économie écologique, Ecoinnovation et Ingénierie du Développement Soutenable).
Beyond the issues related to the availability, allocation and use of resources and energy products by and for the energy sectors, there are peripheral issues (both socio-economic and environmental) that influence society as a whole. The energy transition generates effects that are of interest to citizens, companies, local or regional authorities, and the government. From an economic point of view, these actors are all, each at their own level, both beneficiaries and financers of energy transition operations. An approach in which actors take into account the intangible and indirect links between value production, energy consumption and pressures on the environment and society is founded on a socio-economic rationale. However, the economy conventionally uses accounting and contract tools that take a normative approach. The reconciliation of these two rationales could make it possible to develop economic frameworks liable to improve both the financial profitability of transition projects, and the socio-economic and environmental benefits to society.
Firstly, the paper will present two economic approaches to valorising the social and environmental effects of energy transition projects. One aims to internalise the positive effects of energy efficiency operations in market or rental values. The other is concerned with the effects of operations within their local or regional area. Secondly, by looking at a contract-based operation aimed at technical-economic profitability (energy savings), the paper will consider the shift from bilateral and transitive valorisation of material production at the local level, to cooperative transactions that lead to valorisation of a service rendered by contracting the performance of a socio-technical system integrated into the region. Then, the paper will present the Dynamic Modelling of Cost Systems (DMSC) approach, which aims to represent the regional circulation of information and capital flows between the energy industry and society. The needs and advantages felt by the actors and the expression of values during cooperative transactions are subjective. The economic information useful for reconnecting the energy industry and society must therefore retain the actors’ own representations of the value(s) of transition projects. In other terms, it is a matter of integrating societal data into multi-criteria socio-economic and environmental information, and not merely aggregating these data into a financial signal.
MOTS CLÉS : Methodology, foresight, reflexivity; public policies and territories; the socio-economics of energy.
Change in fuel oils taxes : energy or fiscal transition?
Marianne OLLIVIER-TRIGALO (Paris-Est University /LVMT)
The Finance Act Project for 2014 has introduced a carbon base within the TICPE (the French Tax on Consumption of Energy Products). After several failures of the introduction of a carbon tax (« Contribution Climat Énergie »), the discreet vote of this measure gives the opportunity to take care of the “invisible pilots of public action” (Lorrain, 2004) and to test the hypothesis that sets that public policy changes are more perceptible through their instruments than their objectives. Here, the change in the fuel oils tax instrument brings out the very beginnings of an environmental policy applied to road sector. This last is based on the solidity of a well-proven fiscal policy (the TIP has been adopted in 1928 in order to organize the oil refinery ; the old choice to tax consumption has been reinforced next with the institution of the VAT in 1954), in a context when public expenditures are considered as a politic problem that tax revenues instruments come to solve partly.
This result can be linked to the Committee for ecological taxation that has been set up on december 2012 the 18th (by Delphine Batho the then minister of Ecology) as a consequence of the first environmental Conference and that was chaired by Christian de Perthuis (economist, univ. Paris-Dauphine, Climate Economics Chair). But, this measure only partly corresponds to the committee works and to the recommandations that have been shouldered its chairman. As a matter of fact, this one had proposed to change the TICPE structure by adding to the carbon base a mechanism aiming at bringing closer diesel and fuel taxes, by arguing about it that the difference was not justified anymore with regards to environmental objectives. This measure is considered as a myth in the road transport world but the introduction of the carbon base gives to it a very beginning of realization (the rate applied to diesel is higher than the fuel one).
This communication proposes to come back to the process that has allowed this measure, notably by analyzing how the actors have had to make some compromises in order to ajust their logics of action to the Budget designs, this last institution controlling (technically but also politically) the tax policy. Those compromises were concerning the intrinsic contradiction of environemental taxation : tax yield and acceptability vs incentives to behavioural change. The choices made to deal with this contradiction involve au question about the kind of transition: energy or fiscal? The change in the TICPE has been used to finance the CICE (tax credit for competitiveness and employment that is announced as a fiscal reform) with a relatively weak value of the carbon tonne and slower rythm of evolution than wished by environmental NGO. At the same time, however, using an existing tax instead of creating a new tax acted as a guarantee of success for the introduction of a carbon tax in France. This last one still remains in the Finance Act Project for 2015, surviving to the committee (the chairman has resigned from his post in october 2014) and to the succession of Ecology ministers (4 from May 2012).
This analyze is based on a survey by semi-structured interviews with most of the committee’s members (17 respondents between april and september 2014). The committee’s composition is of the same design as the Grenelle de l’environnement groups (NGO, employers, employees, local elect), to which has been added members of parliament (deputees, senators, european deputees). Two civil servants (from Ecology and Finance) were jointly dedicated to ensure the general secretary of the Committee. At last, the chairman has asked for some academic experts to help him for running working groups.
KEY WORDS: Ecological taxation, fuel oils, carbon base, public policy instrument.
The use of European structural funds for the financing of energy efficient refurbishment of housing.
Laura VANHUÉ (Freelance consultant)
The predominant position of energy efficiency issues in national and European public policies today brings up questions about the ability of governements to address and finance the important energy savings in buildings, in particular in the housing sector.
In order to tackle ambitious targets for increasing the energy efficient refurbishment of housing, public stakeholders are encouraging to set up schemes for the structuration of energy services on national, regional and local level.
The financing issue becomes in fact more important when it has to ensure access to fundings to low income households, the group most affected by energy powerty.
The limits and weaknesses of measures and programs supporting energy efficient renovation have been identified:
- They are insufficient to support households to take action and to go for ambitious renovation
- They are unable to address the higher volume flow of renovation projects
- The financial support is mostly limited to grants but less extended to innovative mechanisms of funding and financing.
The recent development of energy services which integrate all parts of a renovation project including his financing represents indeed an opportunity for all skateholders and a important contribution:
- It creates a link between all levels of action, national, regional as well as european,
- It has a real leverage effect of public financial support,
- Demand and supply get closer,
- It improves the efficiency of the construction sector around the renovation of buildings which are in majority SEMs involved on local level.
It is especially relevant in this policy context to analyse the rule of european financing, in particular Structural Funds.
Energy efficiency in buildings belongs in fact to the mean priorities of the european cohesion Policy in the coming programming period (2014-2020). Energy efficient refurbishment in housing will be supported by grants combined by the use of financial instruments in order to generate revolving sources of finance and improve the use of public ressources. The mean objective is to blend financial instruments in specific mechanisms adapted to cover the Financial needs of all housing segments in order to optimize the use of ressources and to concentrate the grants on the low income households.
KEY WORDS: financing, energy efficient refurbishment , european fundings, integrated approach of energy services, affordability.
INDUSTRIAL STRATEGIES AND PUBLIC POLICIES
The operators of solar farms conformation and hybridization between the French centralized system.
Vincent BAGGIONI (University of Aix-Marseille/LAMES)
Aurélien Evrard showed how wind-power segment has complied with the terms of centralized development of French electricity. Initially worn by players of the Alternative , the development of wind power had to bow to the joint action of political and technical actors of the “Secteur” (Evrard, 2010). The new model of mass production of renewable energy (ENR) as the solar farms could suffer the same fate. Thus, the State, after (over) valued this production through high Feed-in tariffs, abruptly stopped the policy support, hindering the establishment of an industry yet in the process of structuring (CGDD, 2012; Observ ‘Er 2012). Historical energy operators of the state, those we call the Great French energy groups (GGEF) have meanwhile invest the French market solar parks, and appropriate technologies to structure a competitive offer to export. The scenario of the wind seems to repeat itself.
But the observation, rather than domination by actors of the “Secteur”, professional structuring of solar parks segment shows different development models. Regulatory difficulties and fluctuations in tariffs participated sorted actors, depending on the difficulties they have encountered or expected interest for this type of investment. The GGEF through their existing local ties, they preferred the land easier to develop. These sites have less sensitive contacted with conflict situations. They take less specific learning solar farms and maintain the practices established during the territorialisation of wind power. SMEs ENR, less familiar territory canvassed, they bind themselves to articulate the development to local circumstances and to “spare” places (Marié, 2005). This intensify our attention to places and people involved in conflict reduction for new entrants. However, the learning trajectories of actors ENR differentiate older, come from wind power, and more recent ones created during the emergence of PV. The place of consultation also differs development methods with different audiences. But convergence of practices also appears, indicating transmissions, mutual learning. They are possible to the extent that they share venues and familiarity of view on the role of ENR in society (Cointe, 2013).
Where the end of a national policy should spell the end of PV plants on the ground, these facilities continue to see emerge. And while GGEF leave solar farms segment with lower feed-in tariffs, SMEs ENR, partly resulting from the Alternative, continued to invest in this type of energy, whose they are nowadays major producers. Empowering SMEs ENR has increased through their specialization in the integration of solar farms in natural environments. However, they are not a complete break with the dominant energy model of the Sector. Hybridization forms, by the upstream or downstream, is combined with the centralized energy structures. Dynamic sorting and learning are made not in the competition between operators, but in the specialization of space types and adaptation. Infrastructure under one actually looks different spatial planning and links with local companies modes.
KEY WORDS: solar farms, photovoltaic, professional, learning, territorialisation.
Promotion of offshore wind farms: Local mobilization and national lobbying to simplify legal frameworks to promote renewable marine energy.
Nicolas BENVEGNU (Sciences Po Paris/Médialab)
Until recently, the sociology of mobilization has primarily focused on an analysis of social
movements that based themselves on highlighting a problematic situation and advocating for a given policy or project that responds to resolving the issue at hand. Campaigns like NIMBY (Not in my backyard) have become key examples in studying local resistance movements that oppose development projects that while beneficial to the greater good, are too close for comfort. The sociology of mobilization focuses on social movements opposed to projects. This paper will to explore movements that promote projects by using different scales of mobilization to achieve a common goal. This movement is being invoked within the industrial sector in response to offshore wind farms in France and the United Kingdom. The contribution uses through three original areas to promote its goal: engagement and mobilization by developing localized critical approach of empowerment procedures; evaluating the weight of these mobilizations within regulatory frameworks and public policies to be used at various levels in support of industrial development of marine renewable energies; contribution to a socio-economic analysis of energy transition by focusing on renewing part of electrical production sources.
This text proposes taking into considering actions of local businesses by local actors as well as socio-economic (chambers of commerce, business-oriented networks, unions) and political actions (locally elected officials) that demonstrate to national public authorities and project leaders that their territory is attractive. These actors prove that locally implemented actions can work to ensure the best possible reception and rollout of an offshore wind power project in a competitive territorial context. What follows is a shift in focus away from previous studies of NIMBY, towards PIMBY (Please in my back yard) (Benvegnu, 2014). The analysis examines national mobilizations that intervene to lobby in favor of the legal frameworks and regulations necessary to develop projects within a new industrial sector. Industries and their representatives (renewable energy unions in France, RenweableUK in Great Britain) use lobbying to gain guaranties from national authorities that limit the risks their investors may incur. It is along these lines that a law on energy transition adopted in France by the National Assembly on October 14th 2014 has sought to facilitate investment by simplifying and clarifying the procedures that had previously hampered economic actors. (Section VII of the drafted bill). This paper demonstrates, for example, how French government’s calls for tenders on offshore wind farms in 2011 and 2013, awarded based on tenders and regardless of public debate thus violating the spirit of the Environment Code, the cornerstone policy of information and public participation in France. Lastly, the paper shows how mobilizations in support of projects work not only to create favorable developmental conditions, They also have the effect of marginalizing the opposition. The result is a labeling of “NIMBY syndrome” that discredits opposing sides of a project and stifles debate.
KEY WORDS: industrial sector, marine renewable energy, mobilization, lobbying, participation.
The story of oil in Argentina, the case of the oil company YPF or national company, the neoliberal triumph and the “recovery” popular.
Federico U. BIETTI (ENS of Cachan/IDHES)
The aim of this article is to introduce the Argentinean petroleum company YPF (fiscal oil fields) which was expropriated or “recuperated” (according to the native language) in 2012 by the government of Argentina. This is a presentation of the company according to the history of local oil and energy development. To this end, after a general presentation we will analyse in detail the levels of production, distribution and commercialisation of oil and gas –both conventional and schist-, the administration of the company throughout its history since its creation in 1922, and the role of the company in relation to the economic development strategies of the country. We will analyse also the different discourses which shape and have shaped the complex history of this enterprise that is not “only a company” of the energy sector, but a main actor for the economic and the social culture of Argentina. YPF represents, in the symbolic universe or the social imaginary of Argentines, the project of development of the liberal-nationalist. Against the power of the North American and European companies, YPF must have served as guarantee for “the moral and economic progress of the nation” and for the self-sufficiency in terms of oil and gas in the words of the first president of the company, General Enrique Mosconi.
KEY WORDS: oil and gas, energetic resources, argentine, petroleum company, YPF abstract.
Contesting the energy transition: symbolic and political influences of the energy intensive industries in the elaboration of the Swedish electronuclear policy.
Téva MEYER (Paris 8 University/CRAG)
While electricity production in Sweden is already almost carbon-free, the future of nuclear energy in the country’s energy transition (energiomställning) is disputed. Prohibited by law in 1981, the development of atomic energy had been reauthorized by the center-right government in 2011. Today, this decision is challenged by the newly elected left administration. The 2014 election campaign, which lengthily focused on the future of the country’s energy supply, permitted to clearly identify the system of actors involved in the conflict over the use of nuclear power. This time-phase allowed us to underline one singularity of the Swedish situation, i.e. the intense activity of the energy intensive industries (or Basindustri) in the debate, individually, or through their professional organizations. The Basindustri usually gathers four fields: pulp and paper industries, mining, steel industries and chemical industries. This communication will investigate their roles and actions in the debate.
We will demonstrate that the industries’ influence take multiple shapes. As concerned actors, energy incentive companies try to direct the legislative process by lobbying through the different associations that they manage, or by activating their network in the political sphere. This point will constitute the first part of this intervention. But their greatest influence seems to be indirect. Considered as consubstantial to the construction of Modern Sweden, the Basindustri benefit from a strong symbolic power in the eyes of politicians. Their activity, based on the access to cheap and abundant energy, is considered to be the guarantor of the Welfare State. Furthermore, while Sweden inhabitants are mainly concentrated on the south coastal areas, the Basindustri are established in depopulated and shrinking communities. Their presence is perceived as necessary to maintain a population in every parts of the national territory. Thus, more than through their direct actions, the industries’ influence seems to rest upon the representations, historically and geographically constructed, that politicians have of them. These researches will be explained in a second part of this proposition.
This communication will be based on the results of a 4 months research trip made in early 2014 in Sweden and on an unpublished corpus of maps.
KEY WORDS: conflicts, nuclear energy, sweden, companies, representations.
The Transfer of Expert Knowledge from Nuclear Production to Nuclear Decommissioning in Eastern Germany.
Sergiu NOVAC (Central European University, Budapest)
The company ‘Energiewerke Nord Gmbh’ (EWN) is the largest player dealing with nuclear decommissioning on the German market. Its headquarters are located at the Baltic Sea, next to the city of Greifswald, and the company declares itself the legal successor of the Greifswald nuclear power plant. This was the only operational plant of this kind in the GDR. By the end of the 1980s the four Soviet built water pressure reactors were covering over 10% of the total electricity demand of the country. The plan was to expand the capacities to eight reactors, which would have made it the largest nuclear power plant in the world. By 1989, reactor 5 was already finished and tests were being run to put it on grid, while reactor 6 was in its final design phase. However, during the process of the German reunification and despite the fact that the entire region was economically dependent of the plant, the Soviet reactors were deemed unsafe by the West German government and it was decided to completely shut down the power plant. EWN, the new entity established in 1990, immediately after the shut-down, was initially supposed to take over the decommissioning of all the Soviet type nuclear facilities of the former GDR, which included Greifswald, the much smaller experimental plant at Rheinsberg and the research reactor of the Institute of Nuclear Research of the GDR in Rossendorf, near Dresden. Gradually, EWN grew and took over other important decommissioning projects inside of Germany (in Karlsruhe and Jülich), but also became involved in projects abroad (for instance the Ignalina power plant in Lithuania or the clean-up of the nuclear submarine graveyard in Murmansk, Russia). It is also expected that through the final decision from 2011 of the German federal government to completely phase out its nuclear energy production program, EWN will keep growing and will take over several other large scale decommissioning projects.
This paper will focus on a narrow slice of this intricate story, namely the early development of the company in terms of expertise. It will not only ask who the people behind the establishment and growth of EWN were, but also how did they get in this position? A notable detail is the fact that the main actors involved in this process came from the West German nuclear industry and in particular from the company Nukem, which the West German government had dissolved in the late 80s, following several high level corruption scandals. Therefore, the paper will look at how the opening up of the East German industry also created a laboratory for putting together an enterprise that could not function in the same way in Western Germany.
KEY WORDS: nuclear decommissioning, networks of expertise, transfer of knowledge, eastern Germany.