H2020 ACCEPT Project:D3.9 – Energy Governance Analysis and typology for communities

This deliverable reports on work undertaken for Task 3.3 of work package 3 of the ACCEPT H2020 project and examines the governance and socio-political contexts that condition and structure current pathways to participation, particularly in terms of citizen energy community (CEC) formation. Applying a multi-level perspective, the authors analysed the barriers and drivers to development at a number of scales including the local/individual, regional, national, and EU levels, outlining how citizens are encouraged to, or indeed dissuaded from, participate in these types of energy transition pathways. From this comparative work, we were able to develop a typology of key drivers and barriers to citizen participation in CECs, many of which are common across member states. This typology is now informing ongoing work in work package 3 and is contributing to preparatory work for work package 8. This report should be viewed in conjunction with its companion deliverable, D3.6 Report on existing European energy communities and success factors, which presents a number of the case studies that inform this deliverable. Tasks 3.2 and 3.3 ran concurrently and work within each task informed the approach taken in the other, while at the same time focusing on specific aspects of community energy participation and citizen engagement relevant to each task. While task 3.2 comprised a desk study of citizen energy communities across fourteen European countries using illustrative examples of the types of initiatives currently in place, task 3.3 focused on the drivers that influence and impact efforts made by those citizens engaged in the types of initiatives highlighted in D3.6. The authors refer to citizen engagement more so than consumer engagement because it is in their role as citizens, not consumers, that people make active choices to (dis)engage in such activities. As consumers, they are usually limited to choosing from Choice A or Choice B, but it is in their role as citizens that they are really able to engage, participate, promote, protest, vote, invest, or join in a community energy initiative