Understanding the governance of innovative energy sharing in multi-dwelling buildings through a spatial analysis of consumption practices

Abstract

In collective self-consumption (CSC) communities, citizens come together to produce renewable energy and need to find ways to organise the sharing of consumption at the (micro-)local level. The articulation between the exposure of individual practices and the collective objective of lowering consumption outside solar periods leads to dynamics of social control and privacy preservation that vary according to the nature of spaces. Observing two operations of solar energy sharing in multi-dwelling buildings, our ethnographic analysis investigates the practices of occupying different types of space – from the common to the private - as well as the scenes of discussion among individuals. In this sense, our research reveals a strong intertwining between, on the one hand, the governance of energy communities and, on the other, the spaces in which consumption practices, energy accounting and deliberation processes take place.

Keywords

• Energy community
• Collective self-consumption
• Multi-dwelling buildings
• Innovation
• Energy metering
• Inhabited space