Energy Sufficiency
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes sufficiency as
policies, measures, and daily practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, water, and land while delivering human well-being for all within planetary boundaries.
Several players in the French energy sector published energy outlook scenarios for 2050 at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022: :
As the institute is required to analyse pathways to carbon neutrality, the team analysed these scenarios. We found that most of these scenarios have in common lifestyle disruptions by 2050. More specifically, one RTE scenario, two ADEME scenarios and the négaWatt scenario are 'sufficiency' scenarios, i.e. they include significant lifestyle changes that will lead to a substantial reduction in energy demand by 2050. The levers for sufficiency identified in these scenarios are similar, suggesting a consensus is emerging around the concept of sufficiency with regard to energy demand. This demonstrates the importance of understanding how society works when producing scenarios.
Furthermore, in autumn 2022, after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict had lasted for more than six months, the world was hit by an energy crisis. In France, this resulted in an unprecedented event in the history of the modern economy: the French president acknowledged the 'end of abundance' and the government published an energy sufficiency plan. Local authorities, the service sector, businesses, universities and other organisations implement energy-saving measures.
Today, energy sufficiency is one of the four pillars of France's energy strategy, alongside nuclear energy, renewable energies, and energy efficiency.
Studying energy sufficiency is paramount for developing a systemic vision of the energy transition. However, this concept gives rise to many research questions, which I-Tésé aims to address through internal projects and collaborations to promote transdisciplinarity.
Research questions on sufficiency studied within the team :
From a household perspective, the key questions are:
- How do households respond to energy crises?
- What are the drivers of sufficiency?
- How can they be activated?
These topics are addressed by the Prométhée Observatory, an observatory focusing on sufficiency and crisis adaptation measures, created in 2022 with the Center for Sociology of Innovation (CSI) at Mines Paris Tech, the Center for Research on Risks and Vulnerabilities at the University of Caen Normandy (CERREV), the Dôme de Caen (CCSTI), and the IRTS in Caen (Regional Institute for Social Work).
For the industrial world, the key questions are:
- What economic models can promote sufficiency?
- What are the economic and environmental impacts of industrial decarbonization scenarios based on sufficiency strategies?
- How can industry be decarbonized through strategies of energy and resource sufficiency?
These questions are being addressed within the SPECULAR project (PEPR SPLEEN), in which I-Tésé is collaborating.
Finally, more broadly, issues affecting both households and industry are addressed:
- What legal frameworks are needed to promote sufficiency? This topic is addressed in particular by the European Research Platform on Energy and Climate Law.
- How can we measure the effectiveness of public policies for energy sufficiency? This topic is addressed, among others, in the thesis “Energy sufficiency: legal and territorial challenges for an effective energy transition.”
- How could energy demand and usage evolve?
- How could demand for key resources evolve? This topic is addressed in the ANTIBES project.