Energy Transition and Energy Demand Flexibility: From a Technological/Behavioural Approach to a Community-Based Perspective

Our contribution will focus on energy demand flexibility in the context of energy transition. Under the RePowerEU scenario, renewable energy sources are expected to comprise approximately 69% of electricity generation by 2038. This significant shift will profoundly reshape the design and operation of energy systems in particular in relation to energy demand and the role of consumers. While in the past energy demand was treated as something fixed, now it is thought of as something that can and should be flexed. This is linked to the need to manage a higher proportion of intermittent forms of renewable energy supply. However, in the literature different approaches can be identified as to how flexibility should be analysed and implemented. In particular in our presentation on the one hand we will highlight the limits of the dominant technological/behaviourist approaches to flexibility which focus on offering more information or variating the economic incentives. On the other hand, we will uncover the added value of sociological approaches to flexibility which focus on the role of social practices and social relations and highlight the role of inequalities through the concept of flexibility capital. Eventually sociological approaches underscore the distinctive value of Energy Communities in reducing and flexing demand through their capacity to reconfigure collective socio-technical contexts of action. Accordingly, in our presentation we will conclude with the analysis of some community-based projects around flexibility elaborated by three European energy cooperatives (the Italian ènostra, the French Enercoop and the Dutch Endona). Through in-depth interviews and analysis of grey literature we will uncover the way the selected energy cooperatives accompany the socio-technical process towards energy demand flexibility and actively engage prosumers.