Anne-Lorène Vernay

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Grenoble Ecole de Management

The need to accelerate the decarbonisation of the energy system has led to renewed interest in energy communities. Such communities are now identified by institutions as new instruments that can contribute to four main policy objectives: i) increase renewable energy capacity, ii) mobilize private capital, iii) provide flexibility for the electricit...

Achieving climate-neutrality by mid-century and its intermediary reduction targets for 2030, notably the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 55% by 2030, requires an accelerated transformation of our systems of production and consumption. In essence, such transformations are socio-technical change processes that require a combination of tech...

Local electricity exchange is often praised for its ability to empower consumers and benefit communities. In this paper, we investigate and compare the development of local electricity exchange practices in three European countries: France, Switzerland, and Great Britain. We ask: how do local electricity exchange practices and markets vary across n...

Addressing global sustainability challenges requires a mainstreaming of business models for sustainability (BMfS) in mature industries. However, the presence of an already dominant mainstream business model in an industry tends to hold back BMfS. This article investigates how new types of BMfS can become generally accepted and widely adopted in an...

Within the "Renewable energy cooperative” case study, we defined the boundaries of the field by relying on the cooperative principles provided by the European federation of renewable energy cooperatives (REScoop) and by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) respectively. These principles include i) concern for community, ii) voluntary and o...

Dans le champ des « coopératives d’énergie renouvelable » (CER), nous nous concentrons sur des modèles organisationnels dans lesquels les citoyens possèdent collectivement des moyens de production d’énergie renouvelable et participent à cette production, et qui respectent les principes coopératifs de la fédération européenne des coopératives d’éner...

Citizens can take an active part in the energy transition by participating in community renewable energy projects (CREPs). CREPs are emerging in France but their growth is simultaneously rapid and fragile. This paper describes the ongoing CRE movement in France based on an in-depth analysis at both the national and regional levels. To embrace the d...

Energy communities—groups of citizens, social entrepreneurs and public authorities who jointly invest in producing, selling and managing renewable energy are expected to play a prominent role in the energy transition. Energy communities are fragile individually and they need to pool resources and coordinate their actions to become robust collective...

Purpose Imagining a new business model is a creative process that requires entrepreneurs to define how a firm can create and capture value with a new activity. The literature emphasises various tools and approaches for prototyping business models. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the suitability of story-making as a means of designing n...

Despite their promise for tackling environmental problems, sustainable technologies are difficult to move from niche to mass markets. They require firms to develop innovative business models. This article focuses on how firms can develop their value propositions to increase the market attractiveness of sustainable technologies that are economically...

Over the past two decades, clusters have become a popular policy tool to increase the competitiveness of regions and to stimulate job creation. The underlying assumption of cluster policy is that the government can either facilitate the development of a cluster or create one ‘from scratch’. So far, limited attention has been given to how the member...

Cities pose environmental challenges but also offer possibilities to close material and energy loops and connect multiple societal and ecologic services. This article reviews and brings together the literature on two important new research directions that address urban sustainability by integrating functions or material flows: Circular Urban Metabo...

Clusters face what has been referred to as a 'cluster paradox'; a situation in which a collective identity breeds cohesion and efficiency in inter-organisational collaboration, yet it hinders the variety needed to adapt to disruptive change and prevent lock-in situations. Accordingly, a recurring theme in the literature on cluster evolution and clu...

In many sustainable urban innovation projects, the efforts, endurance and enthusiasm of individuals at key positions are considered a crucial factor for success. This article studies the role of individual agency in sociotechnical niches by using Kingdon’s agenda-setting model. Although strategic niche management is commonly used to study processes...

Dominé par une poignée d’acteurs, le secteur de l’électricité est longtemps demeuré stable. Il est aujourd’hui en passe de subir d’importantes transformations résultant de deux décisions politiques majeures : la libéralisation du secteur et la signature du protocole de Kyoto. En particulier et contre toute attente, il voit émerger un paradigme exot...

Urban symbiosis is a strategy to create a more efficient metabolism of cities. However, urban symbiosis requires the integration of different systems, which is hard to achieve. Actors involved in existing systems can hardly develop ‘the bridges’ that are required to connect the thus far unrelated worlds of pre-existing systems. This paper analyses...

Key findings : 62 % of the French energy experts do not expect a legally binding agreement to emerge from the Paris Climate Summit – this share was 77 % among the German experts. A majority of the French energy experts think that a legally binding agreement at the Paris Climate Summit would not change the French climate policy targets. A legally bi...

The energy experts consider the current low oil price a temporary phenomenon. The price of a barrel of crude oil (Brent) to reach US$ 55 at the end of the year (2016). About three quarters of respondents expect the price of oil to increase in 5 years and to exceed US$ 100 per barrel within 10 years. The current weak price of crude oil is thought to...

Ainsi avons-nous pu dans cet ouvrage présenter différentes facettes de la façon dont se structure un territoire comme celui d’Aussois. Nous pouvons en tirer un certain nombre de considérations, certaines propres à Aussois, d’autres propres à l’écologie territoriale

Cet ouvrage représente une étape importante de montée en puissance d’un champ interdisciplinaire émergent : l’écologie territoriale. Si des travaux déjà anciens ont traité de questions scientifiques très proches de ce dont il est question en écologie territoriale, il n’y avait pas encore eu d’effort collectif visant à faire émerger une communauté s...

Ce chapitre vise à présenter le territoire de la commune d'Aussois à travers le prisme de l'énergie. Trois questions jouent le rôle de fil conduc-teur : 1) Qu'est-ce qu'une analyse du métabolisme énergétique à l'échelle d'un territoire ? 2) A quels questionnements permet-elle de répondre et quelles en sont les limites ? 3) Quels sont les défis liés...

This Summer’s edition of the Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) Energy Market Barometer documents the French energy experts’ expectations of the impact of the Ukraine crisis on energy supply, the focus of energy policy in France, the economic implications of the energy transition, and the development of energy prices. The findings on the Ukraine cr...

(Full text: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/eco-cities/reflections) - This paper presents the results of a discourse analysis of documents describing six different eco-city projects: Dongtan Eco-City, Masdar City, Sonoma Mountain Village, Hammarby Sjöstad, Eco-village Ithaca, and Malmö bo01. The aim of the research was to uncover the diversity undern...

This new initiative aims to track the key trends and challenges of the energy market, on a regular basis, in collaboration with the ‘ZEW’, the Center for European Economic Research. The ZEW has launched a similar barometer in Germany since 2003. This edition analyses the expectations of the energy market experts on the role of shale gas, the future...

Systems integration is a strategy advocated in order to achieve sustainable development. However, in the literature, it is poorly conceptualized, and current research fails to address systems integration as a process of change. This paper proposes a conceptual framework and operationalization for assessing processes of systems integration. This inc...

This paper explores the innovative concept of flexible poly-generation of hydrogen, power and heat using an internal reforming fuel cell. Flow sheet calculations show that total efficiency of the system in terms of hydrogen and power production can be increased significantly up to 90%. Furthermore by the coproduction of hydrogen, operation at doubl...

Today, many new urban areas, such as cities, towns, villages, or districts, are being built worldwide and their completion requires the development of a number of infrastructures. Traditionally, these infrastructures are planned in parallel. However, increased environmental awareness is pushing cities to improve their environmental performance. One...

In response to increasing environmental problems and consciousness in relation to urbanization, more and more cities are trying to become eco-cities. We can question, however, whether these cities can be considered as sustainable cities. The eco-city concept usually includes criteria regarding energy and water consumption, transport, waste manageme...

Sustainable urban development projects are initiated almost every day. They are the results of very dynamic processes during which a number of decisions have to be taken according to the local conditions. Eventually each project follows its own path. The aim of this paper is to gain insight in the mechanics of sustainable urban development in order...

In this paper we will explore the innovative concept of flexible tri-generation of hydrogen power and heat using an internal reforming fuel cell. Moreover, we will also address how this concept could contribute to a transition towards a more sustainable energy and transport system. Internal reforming has proven to be a very efficient way of hydroge...

Architectural design is focused on the building and its direct surroundings, independent from the energy features of the wider context: district, city or region. When regional and urban features influencing energy yield, transport and usage are taken into consideration in the planning and design process, a better basis is laid for energy-effectiven...

This paper explores energy transition pathways that are broadly considered successful in terms of technology development and implementation. From that, it aims to derive insights for better understanding transition processes and to improve management and governance methods for steering these processes. Recently, theoretical work on transition proce...