Niches for a transition as a space for renegotiating the energy system: The case of self-consumption[Les « niches » de transition comme espace de renégociation du système énergétique : le cas de l’autoconsommation]

Self-consumption, an emerging practice, is considered to be a lever for the energy transition. Paradoxically however, its development on a large scale is controversial. Defined as an entity's consumption of the energy that it has produced locally, the launching of self-consumption has encountered problems and stirred up controversies among all players in the energy sector in France. Schot & Geels' (2007) concept of "strategic niche management" is used to shed on this new theme. The self-consumption of electricity is taken to be a window of opportunity for an experimentation that might, under specific conditions, help to deeply change the established system. Identifying the niche to be used to transform a system is easy to do ex post ; but choosing a niche while it is still a niche is a matter, we assume, of lively debate. How do actors, through the discourses that orient their practices, take sides in this debate about self-consumption ? On the one side, those who want a controlled development of the niche and, on the other side, those who want to change the system…