This paper focuses on the different elements that influence the decision-making of one technological solution favouring the energy transition rather than another within the urban development project (UDP). With a socio-technical approach to change, we consider the social and technical dimensions to be inseparable in understanding the organization of energy metabolism and its transformations. We build on the idea that change does not occur only because it is technically possible, but also because it is “socially desired” by actors likely to make their interests prevail. Technologies are thus one of the elements of market arrangements which are put in place following new regulations. With a multi-level governance approach, we analyse the influences of European commitments on the evolution of technological choices, and we examine how French government decisions encourage or constrain the adoption of technological solutions by the actors of the UDP. More specifically, we focus on the question of stability and change that inevitably accompanies the energy transition. This transition, driven by policies, is formalized by top-down normative regulations that confront the reluctance, interests, and habits of actors in the production chain and require changes both in professional practices, but also in the scales of intervention. In doing so, we unveil the creating, shaping, maintaining, or deconstructing agencies of urban project’s actors. By analysing this evolution since 2005, we note complementary and/or competing interactions between the different technological solutions and the repercussions of these dynamics on the process of “making” the UDP, e.g., the effect of ‘Thermic regulation 2012′ on the use of centralised heating networks, the rise of biomass, the popularity and abandonment of photovoltaic, or the effect of ‘Environmental regulation 2020’ impacting the choice of materials, technologies (e.g., the heat pump) and bringing up the question of circular economy.

Alena Coblence, Hélène Nessi
Paris Nanterre University

 
ID Abstract: 567