Ecological modernization through the prism of the energy community concept[La modernisation écologique au prisme du concept de communauté énergétique]

This article questions the intersection of two distinct photovoltaics (pv) support policies (the feed-in tariffs model and the bill savings model) with urban development projects. These policies, representative of ecological modernization (em), aim to respond to environmental challenges by increasing the proportion of renewable energies in the energy mix, while maintaining the objective of economic growth. We examine the idea that policy based on the bill savings model represents a sustainable approach to em if it creates sustainable communities. Building on the hypothesis that these communities readjust relations and practices of production and consumption on a local scale, we question the notion of sustainability and the positive association often linked to the concept of energy community. Our results show that the installation of pv in situ favored the creation of energy communities and that the bill savings model is more favorable for recalibrating the local production and consumption of electricity. However, our results underline that, despite an anticipation of the governance of pv installations and a framing of a distributed production-consumption loop, the profitability criterion, the competences of the national policymakers in the electricity regime, as well as the operational and socio-spatial contexts specific to urban planning, play a critical role in the success of the sustainable approach to em.