From the source to the resource: Territories, heritages and cooperation around the construction of the solar energy value in Rhone-Alpes

This research focuses on the construction of renewable energy resources as well as the construction of energy transition sustainability in the wake of the new geography of resources (Bridge, Castree). This research argues that an energy resource emerges from a set of relations woven between an energy source and a value perspective progressively associated to it. Thus, resource qualities are not given by the physical characteristics of the energy source (e.g. the diffuse and abundant solar radiation) but by the relations (material, social, spatial) woven around this source to associate it to several materialities (e.g. the electric grid, the roofs, the landscape) in order to construct its value. Within this framework, the energy resources sustainability is presented as a relational quality that emerges while the 'associated milieu' (Simondon) of photovoltaic projects is being developed. The thesis is organized around an inquiry about the emergence of photovoltaic cooperative projects (i.e. the 'centrales villageoises') in the Rhone-Alpes region, which try to construct the solar energy resource in a collective and multidimensional manner (e.g. landscape, value redistribution) in the context of the early 2010's. The inquiry underlines that these projects rely on several heritages (e.g. networks of actors, skills and political visions) from a series of pioneering energy projects developed in Rhone-Alpes between the 1970's and the 1990's. Through these, the groupings of actors develop an ability to navigate in a national photovoltaic policy which does not seem facilitate their growth. Their contribution to the construction of sustainable energy resources rests on the ability of these collectives to constantly adapt themselves to overcome the many trials they face. (author)