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Whereas renewable energy is often characterized as a consensual issue, this article analyzes how its development falls within conflicting dynamics, because it initially aims at transforming radically conventional energy systems, and particularly the electricity sector. Conceptualizing renewable energy as a “policy alternative,” this paper draws its main controversial dimension. However, it also shows that the policy alternative, far from succeeding in destabilizing this sectoral configuration, rather seems to have been transformed itself, if not even absorbed by the sector.