IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v38y2020i3p464-483.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Metropolitan and rural areas fighting for the control of electricity networks in France. A local geopolitics approach to energy transition

Author

Listed:
  • François-Mathieu Poupeau

    (CNRS, University of Paris-Est, France)

Abstract

This article discusses political struggles between metropolitan and rural areas in France over the past 10 or so years, with regard to the control of public electricity distribution networks. In the context of energy transition, this infrastructure involves major stakes for local governments – stakes which are both financial (around 37 billion euros in assets, combined with several hundred million euros in royalties and various taxes) and related to public policy (planning, development of renewable energy sources and electro-mobility, smart cities, etc.). Its control is therefore a cause for many rivalries, as local authorities become more important players in the regulation of the energy sector. This paper presents these local geopolitical battles and shows how the action of metropolises is currently being obstructed by a very powerful rural lobby at local and national levels.

Suggested Citation

  • François-Mathieu Poupeau, 2020. "Metropolitan and rural areas fighting for the control of electricity networks in France. A local geopolitics approach to energy transition," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(3), pages 464-483, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:38:y:2020:i:3:p:464-483
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654419868230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654419868230
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2399654419868230?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Evers & Jochem de Vries, 2013. "Explaining Governance in Five Mega-City Regions: Rethinking the Role of Hierarchy and Government," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 536-555, April.
    2. Blanchet, Thomas, 2015. "Struggle over energy transition in Berlin: How do grassroots initiatives affect local energy policy-making?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 246-254.
    3. Scott, Allen J. (ed.), 2001. "Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297994.
    4. Jochen Monstadt, 2007. "Urban Governance and the Transition of Energy Systems: Institutional Change and Shifting Energy and Climate Policies in Berlin," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 326-343, June.
    5. S. Becker & M. Naumann & T. Moss, 2017. "Between coproduction and commons: understanding initiatives to reclaim urban energy provision in Berlin and Hamburg," Urban Research & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 63-85, January.
    6. Hannon, Matthew J. & Bolton, Ronan, 2015. "UK Local Authority engagement with the Energy Service Company (ESCo) model: Key characteristics, benefits, limitations and considerations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 198-212.
    7. Späth, Philipp & Rohracher, Harald, 2015. "Conflicting strategies towards sustainable heating at an urban junction of heat infrastructure and building standards," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 273-280.
    8. Monstadt, Jochen & Wolff, Annika, 2015. "Energy transition or incremental change? Green policy agendas and the adaptability of the urban energy regime in Los Angeles," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 213-224.
    9. Andrew E.G. Jonas & Kevin Ward, 2007. "Introduction to a Debate on City‐Regions: New Geographies of Governance, Democracy and Social Reproduction," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 169-178, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benedikt Walker, 2022. "A TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVE ON URBAN AND REGIONAL ENERGY TRANSITIONS: Shifting Power Densities in the Berlin‐Brandenburg Region," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(5), pages 766-783, September.
    2. Lamnatou, Chr. & Cristofari, C. & Chemisana, D., 2024. "Renewable energy sources as a catalyst for energy transition: Technological innovations and an example of the energy transition in France," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julia Maria Wittmayer & Tessa de Geus & Bonno Pel & F. Avelino & Sabine Hielscher & Thomas Hoppe & Marie Susan Mühlemeier & Agata Stasik & Sem Oxenaar & Karoline K.S. Rogge & Vivian Visser & Esther Ma, 2020. "Beyond instrumentalism: Broadening the understanding of social innovation in socio-technical energy systems," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/312323, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Jens Koehrsen, 2017. "Boundary Bridging Arrangements: A Boundary Work Approach to Local Energy Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-23, March.
    3. Köhrsen, Jens, 2018. "Exogenous shocks, social skill, and power: Urban energy transitions as social fields," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 307-315.
    4. Peter TY Cheung, 2015. "Toward collaborative governance between Hong Kong and Mainland China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(10), pages 1915-1933, August.
    5. Eitan, Avri & Herman, Lior & Fischhendler, Itay & Rosen, Gillad, 2019. "Community–private sector partnerships in renewable energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 95-104.
    6. Matthew Lockwood & Caroline Kuzemko & Catherine Mitchell & Richard Hoggett, 2017. "Historical institutionalism and the politics of sustainable energy transitions: A research agenda," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 312-333, March.
    7. Becker, Sören & Blanchet, Thomas & Kunze, Conrad, 2016. "Social movements and urban energy policy: Assessing contexts, agency and outcomes of remunicipalisation processes in Hamburg and Berlin," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 228-236.
    8. John Harrison & Michael Hoyler, 2014. "Governing the new metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2249-2266, August.
    9. Juan Miguel Kanai, 2014. "Capital of the Amazon Rainforest: Constructing a Global City-region for Entrepreneurial Manaus," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2387-2405, August.
    10. Yuanshuo Xu & Yiwen Zhu & Yan Wu & Xiaoliang Wang & Weiwen Zhang, 2022. "The Population Flow under Regional Cooperation of “City-Helps-City”: The Case of Mountain-Sea Project in Zhejiang," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Luca Salvati, 2018. "From Manufacturing to Advanced Services: The (Uneven) Rise and Decline of Mediterranean City-Regions," International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 8(1), pages 1360-1360.
    12. John Harrison, 2011. "Global City-region Governance, Ten Years On," Chapters, in: Ben Derudder & Michael Hoyler & Peter J. Taylor & Frank Witlox (ed.), International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities, chapter 27, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Willem Salet & Federico Savini, 2015. "The political governance of urban peripheries," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(3), pages 448-456, June.
    14. Allen J. Scott, 2019. "City-regions reconsidered," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 554-580, May.
    15. Mohammed Adil Sait & Uchendu Eugene Chigbu & Iqbal Hamiduddin & Walter Timo De Vries, 2018. "Renewable Energy as an Underutilised Resource in Cities: Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ and Lessons for Post-Brexit Cities in the United Kingdom," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, December.
    16. Pohlmann, Angela & Colell, Arwen, 2020. "Distributing power: Community energy movements claiming the grid in Berlin and Hamburg," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Roberta Gemmiti & Luca Salvati & Silvia Ciccarelli, 2012. "Global City or Ordinary City? Rome as a case study," International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, International Journal of Finance, Insurance and Risk Management, vol. 2(2), pages 1-91.
    18. John Harrison, 2014. "Rethinking City-regionalism as the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: The Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2315-2335, August.
    19. Mace, Alan & Holman, Nancy & Paccoud, Antoine & Sundaresan, Jayaraj, 2015. "Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56768, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Jennifer Robinson, 2011. "Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:38:y:2020:i:3:p:464-483. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.