Draft:Energy citizenship

Energy citizenship refers to the participation of citizens, both individually and collectively, in activities surrounding the production and consumption of energy. It is understood to encompass all aspects of citizen involvement in activities contributing to a low-carbon, sustainable, decentralised and democratic energy transition. In contrast to traditional top-down approaches that view citizens as passive consumers of energy, the energy citizenship concept acknowledges the inherent agency of citizens and the experiences that affect their ability or desire to participate in the energy system. Energy citizenship may, for example, be enacted through citizen involvement in community-owned energy cooperatives or by installing renewable energy technologies in their homes or localities. However, some have argued that everyone can be considered an ‘energy citizen’, whether they choose to actively engage in energy-related issues or not. As such, it moves beyond traditional framings, like the ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ choice narrative assigned to individuals that shifts responsibility for the energy transition primarily on those citizens rather than those who shape the systemic structures that really impact citizens.

History and background

While citizen involvement in modern energy production and consumption can be traced at least as far back as community-owned grids in early 20th century Germany, in the 21st century, citizen energy initiatives—and institutional support thereof—have become increasingly part of the mainstream. The concept of energy citizenship was first defined by psychologist Patrick Devine-Wright in 2007 as “a view of the public that emphasises awareness of responsibility for climate change, equity and justice in relation to siting controversies as well as fuel poverty and, finally, the potential for (collective) energy actions, including acts of consumption and the setting up of community renewable energy projects such as energy co-operatives”. This definition introduces the idea of energy citizenship as comprising of active participation on issues involving energy. Since 2007, the concept of energy citizenship has become widely used in public and policy discourse. Since then, concerted efforts have been made from a wider range of disciplines including law, psychology and economics and the social sciences to arrive at a more complete understanding of the concept, as well as to undertake empirical studies of energy citizenship (cite all project papers). Such research has expanded the concept of energy citizenship to go beyond active citizen participation and also encompass the idea of citizen rights and the responsibility of governments in the energy transition. The entry of the concept of energy citizenship into the mainstream scientific and public discourse has coincided with the increase in citizen-oriented energy initiatives as well as European legislation and initiatives designed to facilitate citizen participation in energy systems such as the Renewable Energy Directive of 2009 and the Internal Electricity Market Directive 2019, supported by advisory and information hubs like and the Energy Communities Repository launched by the European Commission in 2022.

Definition and Principles

In recent years, there have been increased efforts to clearly define energy citizenship as a useful concept for both research and policymaking. It has variously been defined as "people's rights to and responsibilities for a just and sustainable energy transition," "the degree to which, and the ways in which, the goals of a sustainable energy transition enter into the everyday practices of an individual,” and “forms of civic involvement that pertain to the development of a more democratic energy system”. While researchers have approached the topic from a range of disciplines, these definitions coincide to suggest that sustainability and democracy are both important aspects of the concept. Also, they point to the importance of moving beyond the basic question of participation to a more nuanced understanding of citizenship that takes into account motivation, rights and responsibilities.

Active engagement

Many definitions of energy citizenship refer to citizens’ awareness of energy and climate issues and active engagement in their own energy production and consumption. Such active engagement may refer to membership of renewable energy cooperatives, installation of renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, implementing energy efficiency measures, or virtual prosumerism. It may also include activities such as political activism and advocacy for a change in energy policies. While actions may be the most obvious manifestation of energy citizenship, it has also been conceptualised as a set of beliefs and motivations to act: for example, a citizen may believe she has the right to take part in the energy transition, and be motivated to install solar panels on her roof, but may not be able to afford to do so, or may be barred from action because she lives in a block of flats and the owner does not wish to have panels placed on the building.

Energy access

Despite the emphasis of many definitions of energy citizenship on active participation, others have pointed out that the view of energy citizenship as active participation places a large burden of responsibility for the energy transition on the individual citizen. With this in mind, Hamann et al. (2023) define energy citizenship with reference to the rights of citizens in relation to the energy system, regardless of their level of activity. This conceptualisation highlights the role of government and policymakers in ensuring that citizens have access to energy services and opportunities to participate in the clean energy transition, thus sharing the burden of responsibility for the transition between state and citizen actors.

Legal view of energy citizenship

Energy citizenship is usually not seen as a normative legal concept. Yet, some authors are deriving a normative legal concept of energy citizenship from EU law. According to this point of view, “energy citizenship consists of rights to participate in and (weak) duties to support the energy transition”. Energy citizenship from a legal point of view strengthens the concept of “energy democracy” (on the concept of energy democracy, see e.g. R Fleming, K Huhta and L Reins, 2021).

Significance

A transition to a low-carbon energy system is required to mitigate against the worst effects of climate change. In the European Union, private households and (public) transportation make up more than half of energy consumption and it is now recognised that citizen engagement in the transition to a low-carbon energy system is a requirement to meet emissions targets: in 2019 the EU introduced the concept of energy communities in its Clean Energy for All Europeans package, and its Directive on common rules for the internal electricity market includes rules designed to activate consumer participation in the energy market through energy communities. At the same time, citizen engagement in sustainable energy production and consumption is on the rise: at least 2 million people in the EU are already involved with more than 7700 energy communities, contributing up to 7% of nationally installed energy capacity. This growing citizen engagement in energy production, and concurrent issues such as fuel poverty and debates over the location of renewable energy infrastructure (such as wind turbines), can be understood better through the concept of energy citizenship (Devine-Wright 2007).

Benefits and challenges

The growing number of EU citizens participating in some form of energy initiative points to the large potential of citizen energy initiatives to contribute to a low-carbon transition. Therefore, from an emissions reduction perspective, citizen engagement is clearly both beneficial and necessary. The concept of energy citizenship helps define this engagement in energy production and concurrent issues such as fuel poverty and debates over the location of renewable energy infrastructure, and is therefore useful in guiding and analysing policy and other interventions and to understand the extent to which they are able to promote or facilitate citizen participation.

However, research suggests that the members of these energy communities are predominantly white males with high levels of education and income, and are therefore not representative for society. With the exception of Portugal and Spain, the proportion of women in renewable energy communities ranged from 7% to 20%, depending on the country and the size of the community. Reasons for this under-representation include (1) gender norms and stereotypes, leading, i.a., to a gender gap in STEM education and (perceived) knowledge on technologies, (2) women’s time constraints due to care work, (3) the gender gap in income and wealth, and (4) the gender blindness of many of these initiatives and a male-dominated environment and conversation. A 2023 study found that overall women felt it less efficacious to join an energy community.

Beyond the potential for reduced carbon emissions, other benefits of greater citizen engagement in the energy system may include more localised job creation, lower energy costs, and greater citizen buy-in to necessary strategic energy infrastructure. These can be understood as part of the concept of a just transition noted in many of the definitions of energy citizenship, wherein the benefits and risks of a clean energy transition are as fairly distributed as possible. This becomes particularly relevant when bearing in mind that the degree to which a citizen can exercise their energy citizenship is affected by dimensions of exclusion such as gender, socio-economic background, ethnic minority status, and housing status and thus its benefits may not be equally accessible to all. It should also be noted that while energy citizenship is generally conceptualised as a form of engagement in the transformation of the energy system, some expressions of energy citizenship may uphold the existing energy system or merely contribute to a top-down, limited energy transition that does not upset the status quo of the energy market.

Further reading

• Dunphy, N. P., & Lennon, B. (2022). Whose Transition? A Review of Citizen Participation in the Energy System. In Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions (Vol. 2, Issue 101022791, pp. 430–444). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003183020-30
• Dunphy, N.P., Lennon, B., Quinlivan, L., Revez, A., & Brenner-Fließer, M. (2023) Intersectional analysis of emerging examples of energy citizenship. ENCLUDE H2020 Project: Research Report. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7598736
• Dunphy, N.P., Revez, A., Lennon, B., & Brenner-Fließer, M. (2023) Typology of Energy Citizenship(s). ENCLUDE H2020 Project: Research Report. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10005552
• Lennon, B. & Dunphy, N.P. (2023) Energy and citizenship in a time of transition and socio-technical change. In R. Baikady, S.M. Sajid, V. Nadesan, J. Przeperski, M.R. Islam, & G. Jianguo (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87624-1_223-1
• Lennon, B., & Dunphy, N. P. (2023). Mind the gap: Citizens, consumers, and unequal participation in global energy transitions. In M. Nadesan, M. J. Pasqualetti, & J. Keahey (Eds.), Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures (pp. 327–331). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822796-1.00035-8
• Lennon, B., Dunphy, N., Gaffney, C., Revez, A., Mullally, G., & O’Connor, P. (2020). Citizen or consumer? Reconsidering energy citizenship. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 22(2), 184–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2019.1680277
• Velasco-Herrejón, P., Lennon, B. & Dunphy, N.P. (Eds.). (2024). Living with Energy Poverty: Perspectives from the Global North and South. London: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Living-with-Energy-Poverty-Perspectives-from-the-Global-North-and-South/Herrejon-Lennon-Dunphy/p/book/9781032528199
• IPCC (2023). Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 184 pp., doi: 10.59327/IPCC/AR6-9789291691647. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_FullVolume.pdf
• Hamann, K. R. S., Bertel, M. P., Ryszawska, B., Lurger, B., Szymański, P., Rozwadowska, M., Goedkoop, F., Jans, L., Perlaviciute, G., Masson, T., Fritsche, I., Favaro, T., Hofer, A., Eisenberger, I., Gutschi, C., Grosche, C., Held, J., Athenstaedt, U., & Corcoran, K. (2023). An interdisciplinary understanding of energy citizenship: Integrating psychological, legal, and economic perspectives on a citizen-centred sustainable energy transition. Energy Research & Social Science, 97, 102959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.102959