Project FLEX-MEDIATION

Excerpt

Variability of renewable energies and intermediation with end users

Gilles Debizet, Senior Lecturer, Université Grenoble Alpes

The deployment and integration of renewable energies into the electricity mix is a major challenge for the energy transition. Substantial efforts are required to balance supply and demand on each section of the grid. Complementary controllable generation, reversible storage and temporal adjustment of demand are the three ways of massively integrating renewable electricity. In France, these three avenues are being mobilized at various points on the grid under the impetus of RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité) via a capacity market, and also under the impetus of other institutions or collectives, via mediation actions with electricity users.

FLEX-MEDIATION focuses on mediation actions – financial or otherwise – carried out by intermediary organizations between electricity producers and end-users, with the aim of temporally adjusting electricity demand. The analysis focuses on the regulatory and legal framework that governs the operation of the parties involved, and thus plays a key role in mobilizing consumers to contribute to flexibility. Understanding mediation mechanisms requires an in-depth, dynamic analysis of the electricity socio-technical system, at both national and local, even micro-local levels. FLEX-MEDIATION therefore seeks to answer the following questions:

• What are the main mediations – existing and emerging, market or community-based – between electricity generation and end-users?
• How is the variability of renewable energies taken into account in these mediations?
• Finally, how is regulation evolving to take account of the variability of renewable energies on the consumption side?

Throughout the project, the notion of energy justice will be taken into account in the analysis of mediations and regulations, in order to shed light on the underlying values, modes of cooperation and participatory processes. This will enable us to confront the use of renewable energies, with their intrinsic variability, with questions of democracy, social justice and access capacity.

Keywords: Energy communities, regulation, flexibilities, self-generation, resilience, justice

Tasks

Our researches

Analyze mediators and their influence on usage and end-users

At the local level, the construction and operation of energy communities (citizen cooperatives, self-consumption collectives and aggregators) will be analyzed through the prism of sociology and geography, and then in the evaluation of end-users’ declared practices according to the nature of the mediation.

Investigate the construction of regulation and associated legal frameworks

On a national and European scale, the evolution of regulation and flexibility policies, particularly in terms of demand, will be analyzed from the dual perspective of economic sociology and legal science.

Exchange and produce knowledge, methods, data and results

The project will aim to streamline exchanges within the FLEX-MEDIATION research team, as well as to ensure data sharing, openness and dialogue between international humanities communities, TASE consortia, society and industrial R&D.