Welcome to the eighth ENCLUDE newsletter! In this issue, we announce the final event of the ENCLUDE project in September 2024, present a policy brief that was jointly created with three other Horizon 2020 projects on energy citizenship, and many more updates.

Enjoy the read!

ENCLUDE and ICLEI co-organise a session about energy citizenship at the upcoming edition of European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW), on 13 June 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 CEST.

In this session, we will discuss how energy citizenship can contribute to closing the implementation gaps of policies related to the European Green Deal based on the findings of four Horizon 2020 projects and the experience of four networks of cities and citizens, including ICLEI, C40, REScoop, and Eko-svest.

Find out more and register at EUSEW

After more than 3 years of exciting research on analysing and operationalising energy citizenship, ENCLUDE is slowly coming to an end.

Join us on our final event on the 25^th of September 2024 in the LaVallee space in Brussels and online (hybrid event). The programme will consist of both plenary and group breakout sessions (only the plenary sessions will be online).

The detailed agenda will soon follow here, but you can already register for the event in the following link:

Register for ENCLUDE's final event

A new joint policy brief produced by ENCLUDE and three sibling projects (DIALOGUES, EC2 and EnergyPROSPECTS) advocates that the view on citizens’ roles in the European energy transition must be expanded beyond being consumers, prosumers and belonging to energy communities.

In the policy brief, citizens’ knowledge, perspectives, and experiences are translated into concrete pathways and recommendations. Across the four projects, around 32,000 citizens have been involved in research and capacity-building around the concept of energy citizenship through interviews, surveys, workshops, case studies, co-creation activities, and educational and training programs.

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The report focuses on collective energy initiatives and explores the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship groups. Methodologically, it employs a multi-stage process, involving case identification, surveys, interviews, and cross-examination. Key themes explored in the report include energy poverty, motivations for joining, funding, regulations, community culture, and barriers faced by the community.

Results show that funding challenges, bureaucratic barriers, and regulatory concerns are emphasized as pertinent challenges, while community culture and communication play pivotal roles in the success of the initiatives. Nevertheless, discrepancies between representatives and members highlight that messaging alignment is critical and should be extensively considered in future research on these initiatives.

Read a summary of the results

Explore the full report

A new publication by ENCLUDE’s coordinator, BinBin Pearce, elaborates on a ‘new way of thinking’ that would contribute to overcoming the challenge of climate change and its impacts. This ‘new way’ will have us go beyond using facts and figures alone to persuade and cajole. It will have us stretching our moral imagination and empathizing with people very different from ourselves. It will have us investing in processes of exchange which support the co-creation of knowledge and the future we want together.

Pearce, B. J. (2024). Changing hearts instead of changing minds – another take on climate action. Global Social Challenges Journal, 1(aop), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1332/27523349Y2024D000000006

To accelerate the energy transition and achieve the needed large-scale transformation to address climate change, different barriers including lock-ins and path dependencies, incumbent power structures and changing individual and collective norms, values, and behaviors around energy need to be addressed. In the face of these challenges, citizens are beginning to play a bigger role in the transformation of the energy system.

Djinlev, V., & Pearce, B. J. (2024). Collective action lessons for the energy transition: Learning from social movements of the past. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01455-5

This paper provides good practice guidance for integrating stakeholder and public involvement in energy systems modelling based on the reflections of a diverse range of experts from this emergent field.

The framework outlined in this paper offers multiple entry points for modelers to incorporate participatory elements either throughout the process or in individual stages.

Recognizing the messiness of both fields (energy systems modelling and participatory research), the good practice principles are not comprehensive or set in stone, but rather pose important questions to steer this process.

McGookin, C., Süsser, D., Xexakis, G., Trutnevyte, E., McDowall, W., Nikas, A., Koasidis, K., Few, S., Andersen, P. D., Demski, C., Fortes, P., Simoes, S. G., Bishop, C., Rogan, F., & Ó Gallachóir, B. (2024). Advancing participatory energy systems modelling. Energy Strategy Reviews,52, 101319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2024.101319

Along with its three sibling Horizon 2020 projects (EC2, EnergyPROSPECTS, and DIALOGUES project), ENCLUDE co-organized the Energy Citizenship in the Making event on 5 March 2024, in Brussels. The event aimed to provide insights from the four projects on how energy citizenship can contribute to an inclusive, democratic, and sustainable Green Deal. The event had over 50 participants from academia, policymaking (both at the EU and Member State level), and civil society, and mostly presented the results of a newly published policy brief by the four projects.

The workshop on Energy Decarbonization in Ghana aimed to address the challenges, opportunities, and potential solutions associated with transitioning towards sustainable and low-carbon energy systems in Ghana.

The workshop was organized in collaboration with University of Energy and Natural Resources - UENR and AAMUSTED as part of the ENCLUDE Work Package 3 case study in Africa. Participants at the workshop included students, representatives from the energy sector, policymakers, academia, and civil society.

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