“Energy communities” and the urban fabric. Cross analyses of Germany, France and the United Kingdom

The term “energy communities” tends in research to emphasize the focus on socio-political relationships to explain local energy systems, largely aiming at local self-production and self-consumption. The materiality of technical devices and the materiality of spaces play an equally important role and provide a large part of the explanations. This article provides clues through three examples in Germany, France and the United Kingdom. These case studies show that the actors of “energy communities” use urban making’s tools and logics to make their project happen; where energy legal frameworks and incumbent energy actors’ dominant positions constitute obstacles. These actors take advantage of margins and cracks left open by energy and urban making worlds, which contributes to turn spaces, their production mechanisms, and their operating logics into non-human actors who equally forge local urban socio-energy systems.