Scaling citizen participation through local energy initiatives: Insights in the roles and contribution of the local energy initiatives in The Hague and a strategy and action repertoire for the municipality of The Hague

Within the Energy Transition, citizen involvement is essential. In the end, we have to change together to succeed within the Energy Transition. Because of the local character of the Energy Transition and a responsibility shift, the municipalities have got the challenging task to increase citizen involvement. Local energy initiatives can be a promising solution for the Energy Transition. Therefore, the local energy initiatives can be interesting for municipalities when increasing citizen involvement.The aim of this research is to find a way for the municipality to make use of these local energy initiatives when trying to increase citizen involvement in the Energy Transition. The specific context of this research is the city of The Hague. The following research question has been formulated for this purpose: How can the municipality of The Hague increase citizen participation in the Energy Transition through local energy initiatives? In order to answer the research question, a collective case study and a design process are executed. In advance, preparatory research was conducted to explore relevant theoretical concepts for the research and to analyze the stakeholder ecosystem of the local energy initiatives. The collective case study was performed by conducting nine in-depth interviews with local energy initiatives based on a research framework. This research framework was substantiated by the Transformative Social Innovation framework. Furthermore, the design process is based on the Double Diamond approach using divergent and convergent thinking. Within this design process, multiple participatory elements were included like workshops and prototyping sessions with local energy initiatives and civil servants of the municipality of The Hague. From the research, it appeared that the local energy initiatives in The Hague fulfill a basic role and five specific roles, namely ‘awareness creation’, ‘action perspective creation’, ‘collaboration with the municipality’, ‘voice at the table’, and ‘execution and ownership’. It also came forward that the potential of the contribution of the local energy initiatives to the Energy Transition is not reached. This has three reasons. Firstly, there is no shared vision among the stakeholders. Secondly, the relationship with the municipality is undefined and inconsistent. Thirdly, there are several small challenges as keeping the initiative going, reaching out to people, and not being representative for the neighborhood. When looking at the relationship, the core challenge seemed a way to prioritize and choose the municipal support to provide, to which initiative, and at which moment. Based on this, a final concept was developed to create a strategy and action repertoire for the municipal support per neighborhood and initiative. The strategy is created based on three main questions regarding which roles to support, which support to provide, and how to provide the support. These questions are answered through the three perspectives of Design Thinking (desirability, feasibility, and viability) to cover the multiple aspects to consider when creating the strategy. Possible further research could focus on the development of the final concept in real-life cases and on the applicability of the five initiative’s roles and final concept in other contexts.Double degree in Industrial Ecology and Integrated Product DesignIntegrated Product DesignIndustrial Ecolog