About "energy transition" in Prats-de-Mollo

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→ 1 000 inhabitants

→ Isolated in the Haut-Vallespir Valley

→ Catalan Pyrenees

→ Consumes 6,5 GWh of electricity per year

↑ Prats-de-Mollo and Tech river, May 2021, Baptiste Soubra, CC BY-NC-NA

Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste

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Transforming and modernising the local electrical infrastructures

↑ Extract from a communication brochure of the semi-public company Prats'EnR, 2019

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An experimentation : digitizing the electrical infrastructure to enhance shared governance of energy

↑ Meetings between members of the DAISEE community and Prats-de-Mollo representatives, Prats-de-Mollo, 2017, Nicolas Loubet, CC-BY-NC-NA

How do energy pasts broke in along ?

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"Energy transition"

Fincancial market transition(s) ?

Lifestyles transition ?

...

Decarbonation of economy ?

Energy matters as sociotechnical issues

Do transitions allow effective transformations ?

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Different forms of expression of energy pasts

↑ Hydroelectric plant used to power textile factory before being destroyed (1940), 2022, Baptiste Soubra, CC BY-NC-NA

→ Environment, territory and landscapes

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Different forms of expression of energy pasts

→ Infrastructure and maintenance

↑ Hydroelectric plant built in 1980 that requires maintenance, 2017, Mikhaël Pommier, CC BY-NC-NA

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Different forms of expression of energy pasts

→ Practices and lifestyles

↑ Pratean inhabitants living off the electrical grid, 2021, Mikhaël Pommier, CC BY-NC-NA

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Different forms of expression of energy pasts

→ Socio-political organisation : despite difficulties, the local grid remains operated by a local company

↑ Reception desk of the local distribution system operator, Prats-de-Mollo, 2017, Nicolas Loubet, CC BY-NC-NA

How do energy pasts affected the local dynamics ?

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"Pasts teach us how things move or remain still in Prats"

Mikhaël Pommier, Oxamyne

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Energy transition as a temporal yarrow

Different rhythms coexists within a same transitional process :

→ Political rhythms (e.g municipal elections)

→ Materiality rhythms (lifecycles, maintenance, durability, etc.)

→ Social rhythms shaping the influence networks of the stakeholders

→ Rhythms of regulations and interest of funders (external)

→ Climatic rhythms

→ Participatory research-action rhythms

→ (...)

→ Informal meeting aiming to exchange about energy systems, August 2021, Prats-de-Mollo, Baptiste Soubra, Nicolas Loubet, CC BY-NC-NA

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Merging memories, concerns, generations and temporalities

→ Prats-de-Mollo and State representatives at the "Énergies en Fête" fair, July 2022, Prats-de-Mollo, Baptiste Soubra, CC BY-NC-NA

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Merging memories, concerns, generations and temporalities

"(...) In the material and conceptual forms of its thermodynamic meaning, energy shapes a relationship to the world in which sensitive memory, awareness of political and ecological realities, are numbed at the same time as singularities are progressively annihilated (...)".

→ Anaël Marrec, "Énergie en durée, mémoire en agir", Socio-anthropologie, 42, 2020

"(...) Dans les formes matérielle et conceptuelle de son acception thermodynamique, l'énergie façonne un rapport au monde où la mémoire sensible, la conscience des réalités politiques et écologiques, sont endormies en même temps que les singularités sont progressivement anéanties [par des siècles d'extractivisme énergétique]".

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Conclusion

→ Olivier Labussière et Alain Nadaï, "Les temporalités entremêlées des processus de transition énergétique. Une enquête pragmatique sur nos contemporanéités bas carbone", Socio-anthropologie, 42, 2020

"(...) Contemporary energy transition processes are largely determined by scenarios of climate-energy futures that convey a simplified representation of time (...) This perspective diminishes attention to a diversity of intermediary (physical, biological, social) temporalities, which are the result of more localised collective heritages and dynamics, and can play a role in shaping transition processes (...)"

"Les processus contemporains de transition énergétique sont largement déterminés par des scénarios de futurs climat-énergie qui véhiculent une représentation simplifiée du temps. (...) Cette perspective diminue l'attention pour une diversité des temporalités (physiques, biologiques, sociales) intermédiaires, qui relèvent d'héritages et de dynamiques collectives plus localisées, et peuvent jouer un rôle dans l'orientation des processus de transition."

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

Let's transition transform sociotechnical energy systems !

→ On what time scale and at what pace(s) ?

→ How can the plurality of temporalities be incorporated into the process ?

→ What is the role of transmission ?

→ (...)