Welcome to our third newsletter! In this issue, we inform you about our latest news and events, provide an update on our survey results on Collective Energy Initiatives and we ask for your contribution to our new survey related to the “energy citizenship” concept.

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The overall vision of the Horizon 2020 project Energy Citizens for Inclusive Decarbonization (ENCLUDE) is to help the EU fulfill its promise of just and inclusive decarbonization through sharing and co-creating new knowledge and practices that maximize the number and diversity of citizens who are willing and able to contribute to the energy transition. By establishing a structured and well-documented pool of relevant international case studies, the project aims to study energy citizenship from a group-centered sociological perspective, in order to identify the most important processes and factors affecting the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship groups.

The data collection to create the case studies pool of Collective Energy Initiatives (CEIs) was a mixture of desktop research and qualitative semi-structured interviews. Information was gathered for a set of questions concerning the size, age, and location of the initiative, the type of participation and governance, the resources, the main activities, goals, and impacts, among others. Our approach is based on two theoretical frameworks: the Energy Cultures Framework and the Socio-Ecological Systems Framework for Integrated Community Energy Systems.

First, information was derived from public sources, such as websites of the cases, study reports, business reports, etc. Then, interviews with a case representative were conducted, when possible, to deepen and supplement the information. To analyze the obtained information, we used an adapted variant of the grounded theory. WP3 identified categories into which the cases can be split according to the information we gathered for each of the asked questions, by looking both at all cases as a whole and at the details of each case separately, in order to identify patterns.

Find out more about our results.

ENCLUDE aims to co-create new knowledge with stakeholders about the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship. Although the term ‘energy citizenship’ is increasing used in discourses around the energy transition, the concept remains under-theorized.

This project aims to:

- capture and analyze the varying conceptualizations of energy citizenship found in the literature

- undertake a comprehensive mapping of emerging examples of energy citizenship

- develop a typology of energy citizenship which will connect the different ways in which citizens act in, or on the energy system.

The project is currently recruiting participants from across Europe to engage in citizen-oriented action-research.

What comes to your mind when you hear the term “energy citizenship”? Please complete our short (5 min) survey.

The ENCLUDE Academy continues successfully its work concerning the support of collective actions for the energy transition, the interconnection between energy and citizens and a better understanding of how decarbonization can really become an inclusive process. There are more to come.

The 14th Citizens Energy Forum took place in Dublin, Ireland on the 24th of November 2022. Our partners, BinBin Pearce and Niall Dunphy were there. Energy is an essential good and its security has been heavily impacted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has contributed to an unprecedented rise in energy prices that is hitting the European population. Compared to previous editions, that forum featured an enhanced citizen focus, taking stock of the actions of individuals and local actors to help citizens prepare for the difficult winter ahead, and considering what can be further done once the winter starts. The forum focused on middle-income and low-income consumers and on solutions that they can have access to.

Interesting presentations and discussions on providing inputs on energy consumer and citizen’s issues to tackle energy poverty and the current energy crisis were presented. Among many interesting projects, Maja Clemmensen presented the impact of the Danish district heating project for low-income areas "Solarhouse" from 2008 till now. Danish consumers participating in the project have not been so affected by price hikes because the source of heat from such cooperatives is inherently diversified and supplemented with solar thermal. Another fascinating presentation from a policy maker from Puglia, Italy was related to a scheme for countering the current energy crisis by giving 6000-8400 EUR to low-income households for the installation of solar panels.

CINEA organized and hosted a workshop with all Horizon 2020 and Horizon EU projects working in the field of SSH in the energy transition on November 22, 2022. Eight European projects participated and shared their results, challenges, and ideas for future synergies in terms of operationalizing and promoting energy citizenship as well as moving the energy transition forward. The following projects were present in the workshop: EnergyPROSPECTS, EC², GRETA, ENCLUDE, SocialRES, DIALOGUES, SSH Centre EU, and Transformer. BinBin Pearce and George Xexakis joined the workshop on behalf of ENCLUDE and were happy to finally meet colleagues from sister projects of ENCLUDE in person. This workshop showcased that while remote meetings can be very energy- and resource-efficient, human contact and communication are valuable, even so in research related to social sciences and humanities.

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