Séminaire Villes et énergies en Europe

19/11 : 14h-17h : séance 4 : en présentiel à Strasbourg ou en distanciel via BBB (modalité à confirmer)

Présentations et échanges :

Maarten Wolsink

Neighbourhood microgrids with distributed energy systems.

Coproduction of renewables in polycentric governed natural resources

Distributed energy systems (DES) are originally defined as units that are not part of a centralised power system. ‘Distributed’ implies more than simple decentralised generation locations. In addition to wide geographical dispersion of preferably renewable sources, it concerns generation, storage and management close to demand. DES imply optimised self-consumption, direct connection to the distribution network, and possibly at the customer side of the meter.

Harvesting renewable energy flows is nothing more than utilising a natural resource, so it makes sense to approach it from the theory of sustainable use of natural resources. DES are social-technical systems (STS) that need innovation both at the technical as well as the institutional – social – side before becoming part of a ‘transition’. The concept of STS shows similarity with the concepts of natural or human-made social-ecological systems (SES), which are the foundation of Ostrom’s Common Pool Resources theory. 

Fundamental to SESs and common pools, is their wide variety. As these systems include both natural as well as social subsystems, and the key of ‘distributed’ systems is their geographic dispersal, so their geographic variety is huge. Besides the sunk costs invested in existing hardware of infrastructures, the rules that support the grid’s strong centralist character are a key lock-in factor. The characteristics DES and their variety are at odds with the hierarchy and centralised design of current power supply systems. These already face strong existential pressures, partly through the insertion, without system modifications, of variable RE power plants, and associated reliability and capacity issues.

For renewables, the main scarcity factor is not the availability of energy flows, but the space. Hence, the systems in rural spaces with more space, and urban regions with high amount of demand may be very different. The presentation will discuss the STS of distributed power supply, with sources like PV, low temperature heating, storage, electric vehicles, demand-response, and digital monitoring, as well as distributed control, accounting and governance, as they may emerge in urban settings.

Maarten Wolsink is currently director of DebWo Independent Research, and as emeritus environmental geography connected to the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), first at the Department of Environmental Sciences and then the Department of Geography, Planning & International Development Studies.

Olivier Labussière, Julien Merlin & Alain Nadaï

Geothermal energy in the Paris Basin: from geological and social heat policies to energy transition

Our presentation focuses on the deployment of geothermal heat exploitation projects in the Paris basin from the 1970s to the present. It proposes an approach of these projects as geo-socio-technical arrangements whose organization in (geothermal) loop induces specific articulations and stakes, between actors, the underground and the different elements, sometimes free flowing, that compose it (strata, bacteria, corrosive waters, etc.). Important differences appear in the construction of these geothermal “loops” between their articulation with a “social policy of heat” in the 1980s, then with an environmental policy in the early 2000s. If the first one allowed the supply of heat to social housing in the outskirts of Paris at moderate costs, the other one is linked to more efficient buildings, less consuming and calling for other models of profitability, other ways of living and other uses of the underground. Since the 2000s, old boreholes have been renovated (e.g. Maisons-Alfort), new ones have been drilled (e.g. Alfortville), and new geological levels have been explored. The actors and audiences of geothermal energy are changing, initially aimed at social housing users, it is now developed to supply “eco-districts” and is sometimes at the heart of new socio-economic organisations through, for example, community geothermal energy (participatory financing), or the delegation of public services to private actors.

This presentation shows how the geothermal loop is progressively displaced and reconfigured while being connected to environmental policies. It analyses how energy transition policies and the dynamics of housing policies give to geothermal projects a new socio-political content in connection with the subsoil.

Another key point of the presentation is to follow the influence of an uncertain geological “environment” whose ontology is fluid and moving on these geothermal loops. The groundwater distribution, salt or bacteria are being animated while the process of production goes on. Theses feedback effects challenge the overall socio-technical arrangements (scientific knowledge, visions of profitability, national/local political cooperation) and shed to the light the interdependence between political and geological realms. To do this, the authors mobilise archives and interviews conducted during their survey.

Olivier Labussière is a researcher at the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) and a member of the PACTE Social Sciences Research Centre (Grenoble, France).

Julien Merlin is a postdoctoral fellow at Grenoble-Alpes University, CNRS, Sciences Po  Grenoble, PACTE.

Alain Nadaï is senior interdisciplinary social scientist at CIRED, the International Research Center on Environment and Development, which is part of the French CNRS.