Abstract
Despite the central and constraining role of the State regarding energy decisions and citizens initiatives in the field of RE, recently energy policy documents, in particular the 2015 Energy Transition Act include provision favourable to community and participative projects reflecting a “French localism” that seems to be emerging. We observe a dynamic development over time from only four co-owned renewable power plants in the field of energy in 2008 to 54 in 2016 Finally, consumer (co-)ownership received explicit recognition of its crucial role in the 2018 recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) as part of the Clean Energy Package. In principle participation in RE projects is possible via any available type of corporation, partnership or individual business activity, similar to those in other European countries. Co-operatives as a legal vehicle are also available and RE cooperatives are expressly mentioned in the article 111 of the Energy Transition Act. Individual investments in solar collectors and photovoltaic installations on private buildings, often facilitated by municipalities making use of financing programs offered by the state are gaining popularity. While RE projects take diverse forms the simplified joint-stock company (SAS, Société par actions simplifiée) and the cooperative company of public interest (SCIC, Société cooperative d’interet collectif) are the most widely used corporate vehicles. Despite obstacles, these projects are increasing in number and are becoming more and more common. Programs such as the village centrals (“Centrales villageoises”) supported by European and French regional funds also contribute to creating legal tools, e.g., company statutes, leases for rooftop installations and shared services like insurance policy or accounting adequate for these projects.
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Notes
- 1.
The EU-wide target is currently was set at 20 per cent for 2020 and 27 per cent for 2030 by the European Council in 2014 but is likely to be augmented in order to align with the EU’s engagement within the Paris Agreement. The final compromise, which still need to be adopted by the end of 2018, foresees a target of 32 per cent (see Chap. 30).
- 2.
RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité) was established in 2000 as a result of European Directive No. 96/92/EC of December 1996, requiring France to liberalize its electricity market by unbundling its generation and transmission activities, which until then had been directly controlled by EDF.
- 3.
Previously Électricité Réseau Distribution France and renamed Enedis in 2016.
- 4.
Press conference, “What NGOs want”, p. 16, 19 February 2013.
- 5.
- 6.
However, Decree 2018-112 of February 2018 stipulates which technologies and capacities can still benefit from FiT according to previous decrees (France, Prime Minister 2018b), provided they applied before the decree publication and complete the installation or are connected to the grid in a given amount of time (highly variable depending on the installation’s characteristics).
- 7.
In France, municipalities can choose to group together into “communautés de communes” (CdC, community of municipalities) to exercise a certain number of competences on the members’ behalf (economic development, town and country planning, environment, roads, sports and cultural infrastructures, etc.).
- 8.
The Caisse des Dépôts is a public group made up of a public institution and subsidiaries. See http://www.caissedesdepots.fr/en.
- 9.
A CIGALES (Club d’Investisseurs pour une Gestion Alternative et Locale de l’Épargne Solidaire) is a solidary risk capital structure which uses its members’ savings to create and develop small local companies and cooperatives; its disadvantage is that it is limited to 20 persons.
- 10.
An employee of Taranis, a regional network based in Brittany supporting citizen organizations for the development of RE projects, noticed commercial developers increasingly solicit citizen groups; interview, Redon, January 2016.
- 11.
A civil servant from the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) speaks of a cleavage of governance: those citizens pushing to be involved in every step of the decision-making process at the cost of slowing it down and those merely interested in the financial benefits and thus pushing for rapid project development; interview, Rennes, October 2015.
- 12.
Audition of Thursday, 11 September 2014, p. 240.
- 13.
The head of the renewable energy trade union, Syndicat des Energies Renouvelables (SER), assumed that “we are all open to the possibility not only for companies in the social and solidarity economy sector but even for private individuals or for mixed companies to participate in the capital of project companies that develop renewable energy. However, we must not have any obligations in this area”; Audition Séance du jeudi 11 septembre 2014, p. 82.
- 14.
Arrêté du 20 septembre 2016 relatif à l’agrément de la société Enercoop en application de l’article L. 314-6-1 du code de l’énergie.
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Wokuri, P., Yalçın-Riollet, M., Gauthier, C. (2019). Consumer (Co-)Ownership in Renewables in France. In: Lowitzsch, J. (eds) Energy Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93518-8_12
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