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Paper Short Abstract:

Citizen-led projects aimed at taking control of energy production are growing in numbers. Ethnographic work conducted in France with an energy cooperative's staff and members shows how energy alternatives are embedded in a global capitalist society that incorporates them into the logic of profit.

Paper Abstract:

Community energy is a fast-spreading global movement of citizen-led projects aimed at taking control of energy production and distribution. Both an environmental project that promotes clean energy and a political-economic shift towards a collective type of ownership and governance, community energy has various expressions: from a small group of neighbors who produce and consume their own renewable energy to the re-municipalization of energy production. In my paper, I focus on an energy cooperative and the social relations engendered by the production, distribution, and consumption of renewable energy in a system designed and controlled by citizens. Enercoop Midi-Pyrénées (Toulouse, France) is a cooperative founded by 15 citizens and counts more than 4,000 members who contribute to building and operating solar parks. Apart from its mission to decarbonize the energy system by producing green energy, the cooperative also aims to create a community of “energy-citizens”, people who take an active role in changing the profit-centered energy system through collective ownership and decision-making, ethical consumption, financial investment in solar parks, and volunteer work. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2023 with Enercoop Midi-Pyrenees staff and members, I argue that while the cooperative claims to represent an alternative to the fossil fuel-based, centralized, capitalist energy system, the cooperative and its members are embedded in a global capitalist society which incorporates and subjects this alternative to the logic of profit.