Collective self-consumption or national solidarity? The controversial adaptation of the network usage tariff for self-consumers

The article examines the controversial implementation of collective self-consumption in France between 2017 and 2019, contextualizing it within the recent historical dynamics of declining feed-in tariffs and emerging energy communities. Based on the theory of market agencements developed in economic sociology, the article describes the framing of electricity flows by individual and collective self-consumption. It then explains in detail the controversy surrounding the adaptation of the network usage tariff (TURPE) to collective self-consumption. The implementation of a lowered tariff for collective self-consumers, defended by some actors as a way to improve the profitability of projects, was finally rejected in order to maintain the economic and political coherence of TURPE. In the context of an energy transition that is increasingly taking place at the local level, unpacking this controversy allows us to question the durability of the national solidarity ensured by the network and its tariff. Consequently, the article invites future works in economic sociology, dealing with energy, to seize the network tariffs as an object of study and to take into account to a greater extent the question of scales (spatial, administrative, technical) in the study of the agencements and the valuation.