All good things must come to an end – that is the case for Project GRETA, too. Since 2021, GRETA has explored the forms of citizen participation in the energy transition. Here are some of our key findings, tools and recommendations.
For the past two and a half years, GRETA has studied the drivers and barriers for active energy citizenship. The project has collaborated with and studied six different energy communities around Europe and conducted a multinational survey with approximately 10,000 participants. The project celebrated its final conference in October 2023 in the prestigious University of Bologna. As the project comes to an end, let’s take a closer look at the results.
Defining energy citizenship
Energy citizenship is a relatively new concept. As a research project studying energy citizenship, our first task was to define energy citizenship from our project’s point of view and develop a framework to study its emergence. We reviewed past literature and drafted a definition and framework that could be tested in our case studies. Read more about our energy citizenship framework.
Studying energy information needs, energy justice, and levels and emergence of energy citizenship
Before we set out to test our theories in practice, we gathered information on many questions related to citizen participation in the energy transition.
Access to energy is an innate right. However, it doesn’t always seem like it in our current energy systems. We studied what is needed to make a just and meaningful energy transition. Read more about energy justice.
The quality of available energy information is crucial in the citizen-led energy transition. We found out what kind of information needs our case studies have and how the quality of energy information should be improved. Read more about the role of digitalization and social media in energy citizenship.
Where is energy citizenship likely to emerge? We wanted to study how energy citizenship emerges at different geographical levels: local, regional, national, and supranational. As a result, we created a taxonomy of geographical levels and drivers.
To generate a solid base of analysis for the project, we created a modeling framework to understand the factors that influence the emergence of energy citizenship. The transdisciplinary model considers various factors, including technical, behavioral, social, and economic aspects that influence the emergence of energy citizenship. Read more about the model and a catalog for energy citizenship actions.
Putting knowledge into practice with six energy communities
To learn from the citizens and communities, we studied six different types of energy communities around Europe. These communities helped us to understand how energy citizenship can develop and flourish and, on the other hand, what might act as a barrier to it. Our work with the communities included co-creation workshops that brought together residents, companies, and policymakers to develop and test tools to support the communities. Read more about the case study communities and their results.
Analysing survey data and EU citizens’ energy behaviour
In autumn 2022, we conducted a multinational survey in 16 EU countries with 10,000 participants. We gathered information on energy consumption, attitudes, and behavior, and identified eight different clusters and energy persona types among the citizens. Read a summary of the survey results, or read more about energy personas and test what type of energy citizen you are.
Learn more about the survey data on GRETA Analytics, a tool that allows you to freely and interactively explore the output produced by the GRETA project with a geospatial focus.
Tools for energy citizenship and energy communities
The GRETA project has developed multiple innovative tools for energy communities that want to set shared goals for decarbonization:
Workshop design for Community Level Indicators: how to set the goals and measure progress towards decarbonisation within a community
Template for Community Transition Pathways: template for helping energy citizens envision their role in the energy transition
Energy Citizenship Contracts: voluntary agreements between different stakeholders aimed at addressing energy actions and promoting sustainable practices
Policy recommendations to support the emergence of energy citizenship
One of our most important outputs is policy recommendations that encompass all the learnings from our case studies and the multinational survey. Together with citizens and policymakers, we created policy recommendations to support the emergence of energy citizenship. The recommendations have been gathered in six policy briefs:
1. Engage citizens in the energy transition
4. Energy Citizenship Contracts – An integrative policy tool to facilitate energy citizenship
5. Considering proximity as a driver of energy citizenship in policy making
6. Visualizing Energy Data for Diverse Energy Citizenship
Scientific publications
So far we have published eight papers in academic journals and conferences. More will be written within 18 months after the end of the project.
Pekkola, T. (2021). Machine learning techniques applied to energy behavior profiling. Master’s thesis. LUT University. [Online] Available at: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022062148165
Roversi, R., Boeri, A., Pagliula, S., & Turci, G. (2022). Energy Community in Action—Energy Citizenship Contract as Tool for Climate Neutrality. Smart Cities, 5(1), 294-317. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities5010018
Schlindwein, L.F., & Montalvo, C. (2022). Energy citizenship: Accounting for the heterogeneity of human behaviours within transformative policymaking: the case of Energy Citizenship. EU-SPRI 2022 Conference, “Challenging Science and Innovation Policy” 1-3 June 2022. Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Schlindwein, L.F., & Montalvo, C. (2023). Energy citizenship: Accounting for the heterogeneity of human behaviours within energy transition. Energy Policy, 180, 113662. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113662
Longo, D., Boulanger, S. O. M., Massari, M., & Turci, G. (2023). Energy citizenship. Tools and technologies to enable transition in districts. TECHNE – Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, (25), 84–92. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-13721
Kumar, A., Wolff, A., & Naqvi, B. (2023). Co-creating Community-level Indicators: Involving Communities in the Digitalization of Energy for Empowering Energy Citizenship. 46th MIPRO ICT and Electronics Convention (MIPRO), Opatija, Croatia, pp. 1392-1397. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.23919/MIPRO57284.2023.10159888
Kumar, A., Naqvi, B., & Wolff, A. (2023). Exploring the energy informatics and energy citizenship domains: a systematic literature review. Energy Inform, 6, 13. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s42162-023-00268-1
Kumar, A., Naqvi, B., & Rahman, S. M. T. (2023). Exploring energy citizenship at a community level. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T ’23), 252–254. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3593743.3593774
All GRETA’s data will be available in the open portfolio for energy citizenship
The GRETA OPCE is a living archive of tools and information related to energy citizenship. All the project data will be uploaded to the OPCE within 12 months of the end of the project.
