ENERGY PROBLEMS OPEN MULTIPLE DEBATES ABOUT HOW TO ESTABLISH DURABLE TRANSFORMATIONS OF HABITS AND WAYS OF LIFE. AMONG THE POSSIBILITIES, THE ECONOMIC ONE IS REGULARLY PUT FORWARD AS ONE OF THE MOST PERSUASIVE, OR AT LEAST THE ONE TO WHICH SOCIAL ACTORS ARE THE MOST SENSITIVE.
This is notably the case for price incentives, eco-taxes or even sending pricing signals. In what measure do these decisions, but also the perception of the price of energy and its possible variations, impact the daily habits and decisions of the actors? Other questions arise, that of the margin for maneuver in order to reform the habits of actors diversely and unequally provided with resources to face the demands of change. Pricing decisions can place one part of the actors into complex situations, how to understand the phenomenon of energy precarity, beyond quantitative indicators (rate of effort)?
For their part, the energy industry integrates more and more the occupant and the individual in their strategies of innovation, and more than just the technical dimension, attempting to adapt their business models to the demands of reducing energy consumption, and how are the “behaviors” integrated into technical and commercial innovations aiming to reduce the consumption of energy? How do these issues, written in the new energy contract, rework the collaborations and the “balance of power” between departments in companies (between R&D and marketing, the sales department…)? How do they contribute to the emergence of new economic actors and to the re-composition of ways of creating value? On other levels, what are the issues and the interests in the presence of putting into place new energy infrastructures at a local level or beyond (the energy cycle, recharging stations, anaerobic digestion…)?