Flora Aubert: "Energy communities" and ordinary urban manufacturing. Cross-analysis of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom

Thesis supervisors

: Taoufik Souami, Xavier Bonnaud

While the energy sector has previously sought to make itself invisible in the urban world, the deployment of such energy initiatives raises the question of how these projects are received by the urban fabric. In this thesis, we postulate that these local energy initiatives contribute, in their own way, to the reappearance of energy systems in urban areas, as well as to the reconfiguration of their organization and functioning.

The research is based on four case studies in three countries: Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The cases selected are the Colibres participatory housing project in Forcalquier (France), the

Klimakommune in Saerbeck (Germany), the European Sensible electricity storage project in Nottingham (United Kingdom), and the Smartmagne collective self-consumption operation in Marmagne (France). We focus on understanding how these projects are constructed, i.e., beyond the materiality produced, we analyze the actors and mechanisms of the action taking place.

Three main findings are put forward in the thesis. While the term "energy community" is used in both scientific work and national and European communications, we show that the use of the concept of "assembly"
to characterize the energy initiatives that interest us is more relevant. Our object of study corresponds to the articulation between actors (companies, researchers, residents' collectives, developers, local authorities, interest groups, etc.) and technical and material objects relating to a specific energy project: "local and urban socio-energy assemblages" (ASE-LU). Their links are not based on social or political affinities, but are generated by the pursuit of the project itself.

The various projects studied allow us to situate the effects produced within what we call the ordinary fabric of urban life
. In other words, the cases observed, whose common objective can be expressed as the pooling of locally produced energy, have very little to do with large-scale development projects (ZAC, OIN, eco-neighborhood). In this ordinary fabric, project leaders do not choose socio-political confrontation to change regulations, laws, and production conditions. They prefer to exploit the margins and loopholes left by the ordinary fabric to bring their projects to fruition and transform them into material and social reality.

Finally, we discuss a possible connection between our case studies and the commons.
 ASE-LUs go beyond the classic divisions (which structure urban fabric) between property rights and usage rights, between private and public, between the supremacy of the general interest and the pursuit of partial or individual interests. They face the same issues as urban and/or energy commons: legal obstacles, mobilization of loopholes and interstices. They are shaping social organizations and spatio-technical entities that challenge traditional legal and social structures, both in the world of energy and in the world of urban development.

Thesis defense on Friday
, June 12, 2020

Doctoral school
: City, Transport, Territories (VTT)

Members of the jury:

Xavier Bonnaud, professor of architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-La-Villette and the École Polytechnique, co-director of the thesis

Gilles Debizet, senior lecturer, Grenoble-Alpes University, rapporteur

Bernard Declève, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, rapporteur

Sinda Haouès-Jouve, senior lecturer, Toulouse Jean Jaurès University, examiner

Sylvy Jaglin, professor at Paris-Est University, examiner

Fanny Lopez, senior lecturer, Paris-Est School of Architecture, examiner

Florence Rudolf, professor at the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Strasbourg, examiner

Jean Sonnet, technical director at Omexom, VINCI Energies, guest

Taoufik Souami, professor at Paris-Est University, thesis supervisor