EnergyPROSPECTS

EnergyPROSPECTS (PROactive Strategies and Policies for Energy Citizenship Transformation) will work with a critical understanding of energy citizenship that is grounded in state-of-the-art SSH insights.

Our 3-year project aims to develop a broad understanding of energy citizenship, which we understand as a policy concept, a sociotechnical imaginary, a knowing-of-governance, i.e. a social construction of desirable/normal civic agency in future energy systems. We identify and examine a range of cross-cutting issues in energy citizenship, which will inform iterative typology development and criteria for case selection.

Drawing on existing databases and a search for new cases, we will select 500 initiatives and undertake mapping and typology refinement exercises to demonstrate the depth/breadth of the energy citizenship concept in theory and practice. 40 cases will be selected for in-depth analysis exploring development, evaluation, intermediaries, institutions, governance and ICT in energy systems. Using a multi-actor perspective, we will develop an empowerment toolkit for practitioners and citizens, co-create viable strategies, and develop new business and social innovation models, and new forms of organisation to advance energy citizenship.

A critical part of the research involves analysing the external and internal contextual conditions as they support or hinder energy citizenship in its various forms. Based on the analysis we will match suitable models and forms of organisation with different countries, regions and contexts.

We will conduct a citizen survey to appraise the validity of various scenarios as well as discuss and refine results in citizen workshops and policy forums.

We will produce practical policy outputs which will be revised with policy actors in knowledge exchange workshops. Overall, the project will advance state-of-the-art energy research and provide recommendations for harnessing energy citizenship to achieve energy and decarbonisation goals in Europe.