Skip to main content
Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Rethinking citizen engagement in energy communities Cover

Rethinking citizen engagement in energy communities

Open Access
|Aug 2026

References

  1. Abrahamse, W, Steg, L, Vlek, C and Rothengatter, T. 2005. ‘A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation’. Journal of environmental psychology, 25(3): 273291. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.08.002
  2. Adams, S, Brown, D, Cárdenas Álvarez, JP, Chitchyan, R, Fell, MJ, Hahnel, UJ, Hojckova, K, Johnson, C, Klein, L, Montakhabi, M and Say, K. 2021. ‘Social and economic value in emerging decentralized energy business models: A critical review’. Energies, 14(23): 7864. DOI: 10.3390/en14237864
  3. Ajzen, I. 1991. ‘The theory of planned behavior’. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50(2): 179211. DOI: 10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
  4. Arnstein, SR. 1969. ‘A ladder of citizen participation’. Journal of the American Institute of planners, 35(4): 216224. DOI: 10.1080/01944366908977225
  5. Attari, SZ, DeKay, ML, Davidson, CI and Bruine de Bruin, W. 2010. ‘Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings’. Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences, 107(37): 1605416059. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001509107
  6. Barendregt, W, Bekker, MM and Baauw, E. 2008. ‘Development and evaluation of the problem identification picture cards method’. Cognition, Technology & Work, 10(2): 95105. DOI: 10.1007/s10111-007-0066-z
  7. Bezold, C. 2010. ‘Lessons from using scenarios for strategic foresight’. Technological forecasting and social change, 77(9): 15131518. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2010.06.012
  8. Bidmon, CM and Knab, SF. 2018. ‘The three roles of business models in societal transitions: New linkages between business model and transition research’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 178: 903916. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.198
  9. Blanke, J, Belda Gonzalez, A, D’Oca, S, Niederkofler, M and Nordlund, E. 2025. ‘European small-town Renewable Energy Communities: Participatory design of supporting tools as a vehicle to engage and understand local communities and their energy related concerns’. Open Research Europe, 2: 129. DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.15114.2
  10. Brounen, D, Kok, N and Quigley, JM. 2013. ‘Energy literacy, awareness, and conservation behavior of residential households’. Energy Economics, 38: 4250. DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2013.02.008
  11. Butler, C, Parkhill, KA and Pidgeon, N. 2013. ‘Deliberating energy transitions in the UK – Transforming the UK Energy System: Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability. UKERC: London.
  12. Calver, P, Crowther, A and Brown, C. 2024. ‘Facilitate the Development of Energy Literacy Amongst Citizens to Support Their Meaningful Participation in the Energy Transition’. In Strengthening European Energy Policy: Governance Recommendations From Innovative Interdisciplinary Collaborations (pp. 6172). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-66481-6_5
  13. Cardullo, P and Kitchin, R. 2019. ‘Being a ‘citizen’ in the smart city: up and down the scaffold of smart citizen participation in Dublin, Ireland’. GeoJournal, 84: 113. DOI: 10.1007/s10708-018-9845-8
  14. Dean, H. 2001. ‘Green citizenship’. Social policy & administration, 35(5): 490505. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9515.t01-1-00249
  15. Delanty, G. 1998. ‘Reinventing community and citizenship in the global era: A critique of the communitarian concept of community’. Communitarianism and citizenship, 33: 39.
  16. Diestelmeier, L and Cappelli, V. 2023. ‘Conceptualizing ‘energy sharing’ as an activity of ‘energy communities’ under EU law: towards social benefits for consumers?’ Journal of European Consumer and Market Law, 12(1).
  17. Dietz, MG. 1987. ‘Context is all: Feminism and theories of citizenship’. Daedalus, 124.
  18. Dobson, A. 2006. ‘Ecological citizenship: A defence’. Environmental politics, 15(3): 447451. DOI: 10.1080/09644010600627766
  19. Drevenšek, M and Đekić Tajnšek, I. 2022. Energy Literacy for Energy Communities. (NEWCOMERS Project Report). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6701376
  20. EU. 2018. DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/2001 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. EU Commission.
  21. EU. 2019a. Clean Energy for all Europeans: European Commission. Brussels.
  22. EU. 2019b. DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/944 on common rules for the internal market for electricity and amending Directive 2012/27/EU (recast). EU Commission.
  23. Flostrand, A, Eriksson, T and Brown, TE. 2019. ‘Better together—Harnessing motivations for energy utility crowdsourcing activities’. Energy research & social science, 48: 5765. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2018.09.023
  24. Fung, A and Warren, ME. 2011. ‘The participedia project: An introduction’. International Public Management Journal, 14(3): 341362. DOI: 10.1080/10967494.2011.618309
  25. Goes, K, de Jong, B, Schlindwein, LF, Klösters, M, Kraaijeveld, J, Kluiving, SJ and Chappin, EJL. 2026. ‘A framework to design and evaluate citizen engagement strategies to accelerate the energy transition’. Heliyon, 12(9). DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e44975
  26. Gregg, JS, Nyborg, S, Hansen, M, Schwanitz, VJ, Wierling, A, Zeiss, JP, Delvaux, S, Saenz, V, Polo-Alvarez, L, Candelise, C and Gilcrease, W. 2020. ‘Collective action and social innovation in the energy sector: A mobilization model perspective’. Energies, 13(3): 651. DOI: 10.3390/en13030651
  27. Hess, DJ and Sovacool, BK. 2020. ‘Sociotechnical matters: Reviewing and integrating science and technology studies with energy social science’. Energy Research & Social Science, 65: 101462. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101462
  28. Huggins, S. 2025. Community Energy in Action: Demonstrating the value of community led solutions to net zero. Report produced for the Energy Learning Network. February. Available at: https://communityenergyengland.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/1743511912_ELN-Community_Energy_in_Action.pdf
  29. Huttunen, S, Ojanen, M, Ott, A and Saarikoski, H. 2022. ‘What about citizens? A literature review of citizen engagement in sustainability transitions research’. Energy Research & Social Science, 91: 102714. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102714
  30. Interped. 2026. https://interped.eu/, accessed March 2026.
  31. Jans, L, Goedkoop, F, Perlaviciute, G, Hamann, K, Masson, T and Burgerhof, B. 2024. ‘How bottom-up and top-down governance of community energy initiatives affects citizens’ perceptions, acceptability, and willingness to join’. Energy Policy, 195: 114389. DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114389
  32. Jasanoff, S and Kim, SH. 2009. ‘Containing the atom: Sociotechnical imaginaries and nuclear power in the United States and South Korea’. Minerva, 47(2): 119146. DOI: 10.1007/s11024-009-9124-4
  33. Kaptelinin, V and Nardi, BA. 2012. Activity theory in HCI: Fundamentals and reflections (Vol. 13). Morgan & Claypool Publishers. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-02196-1
  34. Kenis, A. 2016. ‘Ecological citizenship and democracy: Communitarian versus agonistic perspectives’. Environmental Politics, 25(6): 949970. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2016.1203524
  35. Kuchler, M and Bridge, G. 2018. ‘Down the black hole: Sustaining national socio-technical imaginaries of coal in Poland’. Energy Research & Social Science, 41: 136147. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.014
  36. Kuchler, M and Stigson, GM. 2024. ‘Unravelling the ‘collective in sociotechnical imaginaries: A literature review’. Energy Research & Social Science, 110: 103422. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2024.103422
  37. Lennon, B and Dunphy, N. 2024. ‘Sustaining energetic communities: energy citizenship and participation in an age of upheaval and transition’. Scientific Reports, 14(1): 3267. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53367-8
  38. Lodewijk, DPY, Yandri, E, Murdiyansah, N and Ariati, R. 2024. ‘Cultivating Energy Conscious Communities: The Path to Increased Efficiency’. Heca Journal of Applied Sciences, 2(1): 3545. DOI: 10.60084/hjas.v2i1.157
  39. Longhurst, N and Chilvers, J. 2019. ‘Mapping diverse visions of energy transitions: co-producing sociotechnical imaginaries’. Sustainability Science, 14(4): 973990. DOI: 10.1007/s11625-019-00702-y
  40. Loukianov, A, Burningham, K and Jackson, T. 2024. ‘Living well today and tomorrow: young people, good life narratives, and sustainability’. CUSP Working Paper No. 39. Guildford: Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity.
  41. Lucero, A and Arrasvuori, J. 2010. September. PLEX Cards: a source of inspiration when designing for playfulness. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Fun and Games, pp. 2837. DOI: 10.1145/1823818.1823821
  42. Marcus, GE. (ed.) 1995. Technoscientific imaginaries: Conversations, profiles, and memoirs (Vol. 2). University of Chicago Press.
  43. Martins, A, Madaleno, M and Dias, MF. 2020. ‘Energy literacy: What is out there to know?’ Energy Reports, 6: 454459. DOI: 10.1016/j.egyr.2019.09.007
  44. Massey, B, Verma, P and Khadem, S. 2018, September. Citizen engagement as a business model for smart energy communities. In 2018 5th International Symposium on Environment-Friendly Energies and Applications (EFEA), pp. 16. IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/EFEA.2018.8617063
  45. Pallett, H, Chilvers, J and Hargreaves, T. 2019. ‘Mapping participation: a systematic analysis of diverse public participation in the UK energy system’. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2(3): 590616. DOI: 10.1177/2514848619845595
  46. Participedia. n.d. Participedia [Online]. Available at: https://participedia.net/ (Accessed 23 February 2026).
  47. Revez, A, Dunphy, N, Harris, C, Mullally, G, Lennon, B and Gaffney, C. 2020. ‘Beyond forecasting: using a modified delphi method to build upon participatory action research in developing principles for a just and inclusive energy transition’. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19: 1609406920903218. DOI: 10.1177/1609406920903218
  48. Roberts, J, Frieden, D and d’Herbemont, S. 2019. ‘Energy community definitions’. compile project: Integrating community power in energy islands.
  49. Rowan, W, McCarthy, S, Mebrahtu, S, Ertiö, T, Dimova, A, Asenova, D, Moraitis, N and Revez, A. 2024. ‘Promoting active citizen engagement in sustainable energy transitions: a co-creation approach’. Journal of Decision Systems, 112. DOI: 10.1080/12460125.2024.2344872
  50. Rowe, G and Frewer, LJ. 2000. ‘Public participation methods: a framework for evaluation’. Science, technology, & human values, 25(1): 329. DOI: 10.1177/016224390002500101
  51. Sanders, EBN, Brandt, E and Binder, T. 2010. ‘A framework for organizing the tools and techniques of participatory design’. In Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference, pp. 195198. DOI: 10.1145/1900441.1900476
  52. Shortall, R, Mengolini, A and Gangale, F. 2022. ‘Citizen engagement in EU collective action energy projects’. Sustainability, 14(10): 5949. DOI: 10.3390/su14105949
  53. Smith, J, Butler, R, Day, RJ, Goodbody, AH, Llewellyn, DH, Rohse, M, Smith, BT, Tyszczuk, RA, Udall, J and Whyte, NM. 2017. ‘Gathering around stories: Interdisciplinary experiments in support of energy system transitions’. Energy research & social science, 31: 284294. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.026
  54. Soper, K. 2007. ‘Re-thinking the Good Life: The citizenship dimension of consumer disaffection with consumerism’. Journal of Consumer Culture, 7(2): 205229. DOI: 10.1177/1469540507077681
  55. Sovacool, BK. 2009. ‘The importance of comprehensiveness in renewable electricity and energy-efficiency policy’. Energy Policy, 37(4): 15291541. DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2008.12.016
  56. Sovacool, BK, Burke, M, Baker, L, Kotikalapudi, CK and Wlokas, H. 2017. ‘New frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice’. Energy policy, 105: 677691. DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.005
  57. Turnhout, E, Metze, T, Wyborn, C, Klenk, N and Louder, E. 2020. ‘The politics of co-production: participation, power, and transformation’. Current opinion in environmental sustainability, 42: 1521. DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2019.11.009
  58. UKERC. n.d. UKERC Public Engagement Observatory [Online]. Available at: https://ukerc-observatory.ac.uk/ (Accessed: 23 February 2026).
  59. Wahlund, M and Palm, J. 2022. ‘The role of energy democracy and energy citizenship for participatory energy transitions: A comprehensive review’. Energy Research & Social Science, 87: 102482. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102482
  60. Young, J, Jaggoe, R and Mourik, R. 2023. ‘Recommendations for initiating and engaging local energy communities in alignment with justice principles–evidence from seven European citizen engagement processes’. Open Research Europe, 3: 175. DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16497.1
Language: English
Page range: 39 - 39
Submitted on: Mar 17, 2026
Accepted on: May 12, 2026
Published on: Aug 10, 2026
Published by: European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (eceee)
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2026 Tasniva Rahman Mumu, Andrew Peacock, published by European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (eceee)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.