Shining lights

People can also play a vital role in driving change. 

Across Europe, individuals are discovering the potential gains of becoming “energy citizens,” owning renewable energy production and influencing policy. 

The EU-funded DIALOGUES project is helping to drive this change by shedding light on the opportunities, challenges and solutions—and how to make them work for everyone. In our latest interview, Giulia Garzon, Junior Researcher, Energy Institute, JKU Linz, reveals what they’ve learned so far and what still remains to be done. 

The energy transition offers important opportunities for citizens to move from passive consumers to active participants in shaping sustainable energy systems. These include collective ownership of renewable energy, community-led initiatives and greater influence on local and national energy policies. Citizens can also play a role in monitoring, knowledge sharing and co-creating solutions that reflect local needs and values. 

The DIALOGUES project harnessed these opportunities by designing participatory spaces through nine Citizen Action Labs (CALs) in eight countries, where citizens engaged in structured dialogue, scenario building, and co-creation processes. This enabled citizens to envision desirable energy futures, assess their current practices and understand their role in energy systems. 

By using participatory methods such as World Cafés, Future Labs, and Ideathons, and tools like the Energy Citizenship Assessment Tool, we helped translate citizen perspectives into actionable insights for policymakers and local authorities.

In several CALs, such as in Rome and Berlin, opportunities for energy citizenship were strengthened through collaboration between citizens, local governments, NGOs, and energy communities. These cases showed that when citizens are given the tools, support and recognition to participate meaningfully, energy transitions can become more inclusive, democratic and grounded in the realities of everyday life.

Key barriers to citizen engagement in the energy transition include a lack of awareness, limited access to resources and exclusion from decision-making processes. These challenges are often intensified for marginalised groups, who face structural inequalities and are underrepresented in energy planning. 

We’ve addressed these barriers through our CALs that created inclusive, context-sensitive spaces for participation. Policymakers played an important role as facilitators, especially where municipalities (like Rome or Città di Castello) actively collaborated with citizens or partnered with intermediaries like CARITAS to reach energy-poor households. Other intermediaries, including NGOs, helped bridge trust gaps and ensure the inclusion of hard-to-reach groups.

We addressed cultural, social and economic diversity by conducting research through our CALs in eight countries, each adapted to local contexts and conducted by local partners together with other local institutions or organisations which have direct contact with people on the ground.

The labs explored different energy topics related to community needs, values and resources, showing that energy citizenship can take different forms depending on the context. 

By engaging a diverse range of citizens–from rural communities to minority groups–we captured a wide range of perspectives and practices. This approach ensured that findings and tools were relevant, flexible and applicable across Europe’s diverse settings.

Some of the CALs specifically targeted groups often excluded from energy transitions–such as women, low-income households, ethnic minorities and rural residents–also applying an intersectional lens. They also explored participants’ visions of a good energy future through co-creation and dialogue, ensuring that voices typically left out of decision-making could meaningfully contribute to shaping energy policies. 

These labs were designed as safe, inclusive spaces, using participatory and emotionally grounded methods that encouraged open discussion of energy needs, fears and aspirations. Diversity and equity were not treated as add-ons but as central components of the engagement strategy. The knowledge co-produced through these processes not only reflects a broader spectrum of lived experiences but also helps policymakers and practitioners address energy poverty and inequality more effectively. 

They play an important role in supporting energy citizenship by offering accessible technologies and resources and by enabling knowledge exchange and co-developing solutions with communities. 

Businesses acted as facilitators in the case of the Norwegian CAL, where Skogmo Industry Park and Nasjonalparken business cluster were actively involved. They helped recruit young professionals from the local area, hosted CAL workshops and provided logistical support and local knowledge. Their interest in the cooperation was to enable the local industry to address local housing challenges and find profitable solutions in order to attract future employees, by providing affordable, good, and energy-efficient housing according to local needs and promote a social life that entices young professionals to stay in rural areas. 

While their commitment reflected their business interest, it also contributed to addressing regional challenges, such as sustainable local growth and inclusion of rural areas in the energy transition. Their role went far beyond sponsorship or consultation—they helped define the workshop themes, such as second homes, social life, and community development and used their networks to recruit participants. 

They even began integrating CAL concepts–like gender dynamics, aspirations to stay and social connection–into their own surveys and outreach efforts.

The Norwegian CAL shows how businesses, when aligned with community needs, can be powerful enablers of energy citizenship, not only supporting dialogue, but helping to anchor it in real-world challenges and opportunities. Also, by adopting CAL concepts like gender equality and social inclusion, they showed how businesses can integrate energy citizenship values into their development goals and act as long-term partners in energy transitions.

The role of local governments is central to energy citizenship. They are uniquely positioned to facilitate inclusive governance, create participatory platforms, and provide funding. 

For example, in the Rome CAL, municipal staff and elected officials collaborated with citizens to co-develop local energy and climate plans, showing how governments can institutionalise citizen engagement. 

However, encouraging, legitimising and inspiring participation demands a shift in governance culture. Many public servants are trained in regulation and administration; fostering energy citizenship requires a more flexible, project-oriented approach rooted in collaboration, mentoring, and co-creation. This also calls for internal change: administrative reorganisation, staff capacity building and leading by example through pilot projects such as solar installations on public housing, which can link energy, climate and social policy goals.

While municipalities are key enablers, energy initiatives often emerge despite or without their involvement, led by citizens through cooperatives or grassroots networks. These efforts are vital, but often lack the diversity, visibility, and resources to scale. We showed that local governments can play a crucial role in supporting such citizen-led efforts by providing dedicated funding, training, and structural support, ensuring energy citizenship becomes both more inclusive and more impactful.

One important learning from the project comes from the Norwegian Citizen Action Lab, which offers a partial success story. Conditions for supporting energy citizenship were initially promising: local businesses were highly proactive, helped recruit young professionals, but also co-defined (in their view) relevant local topics like housing and second-home ownership. Local municipalities were also involved, acting as facilitators. 

The main challenge came in engaging citizens themselves. Despite extensive efforts, participation remained limited. This highlighted a deeper issue: mainstream energy transition narratives often fail to resonate with rural populations, whose priorities and experiences differ significantly from those assumed in dominant urban and technical discourses. Many local residents felt marginalised or even alienated by policies that didn’t reflect their realities. This CAL, therefore, revealed a critical insight: energy citizenship must be context-sensitive. 

To strengthen energy citizenship, local governments and innovators must move beyond top-down policy logic and actively co-create meaningful, locally grounded visions of the energy future with citizens—especially in rural areas.

Another success story comes from the Greek Citizen Action Lab on the island of Tilos, led by DAFNI in collaboration with the Municipality of Tilos. The CAL aimed to engage local citizens and stakeholders in shaping the island’s transition toward 100% renewable energy, aligning with the EU’s “30 Renewable Islands by 2030” initiative. 

Through two participatory workshops–one focused on citizens' perceptions and priorities for the energy transition, and another on creating an energy community and solar PV park–residents actively contributed ideas, voiced concerns, and received technical guidance. A digital geospatial tool was used to support spatial planning and dialogue, allowing participants to suggest locations for clean energy infrastructure. 

The process demonstrated that when local communities are consulted transparently and meaningfully, they are not only open to renewable energy projects but eager to participate and even co-invest. The Greek CAL revealed how true energy citizenship can emerge when participatory planning tools and inclusive dialogue are put in place.

Based on the CALs, our key messages would be the following:

Firstly, citizens already possess a relatively high level of awareness and knowledge about the energy transition and possible actions they can take. This was observed consistently across all CALs. However, awareness alone is not enough—citizens need pathways to act. Instead of focusing solely on awareness-raising campaigns, local governments should prioritise enabling concrete local projects. 

A good starting point is to assess the state of local energy planning, such as checking what’s already outlined in existing Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), which stakeholders are involved, and what actions have been initiated. In regions like the Greek islands, citizens may see more urgent needs in other areas–like waste and water management–so energy transition policies should be integrated with those concerns, using sector coupling strategies. 

In rural Norway, the challenge was to make the energy transition feel locally relevant, so that it resonates with people’s lived realities.

Second, people are more likely to engage when offered realistic, tangible projects within their reach. Many CAL participants expressed personal interest in small or mid-scale energy actions, like joining or founding energy communities. However, these kinds of projects often require collaboration with capable partners, funding, and technical support. This is where local governments have a crucial role. Not necessarily to implement everything directly, but to encourage, support and coordinate. 

To succeed in this role, it’s essential to design inclusive engagement processes. Several CALs, including those in Berlin, Geneva, Overhalla/Oppdal, and Città di Castello, deliberately reached out to underrepresented groups–such as the elderly, women, rural residents, ethnic minorities, and people with a migratory background–to ensure broader participation and diversity in energy citizenship.

Finally, three practical enablers are crucial: trusted implementation partners who can act as bridges to local communities; physical spaces where people can gather and collaborate; and easy access to reliable, practical information, such as through a “one-stop-shop” that supports citizens in navigating energy initiatives. These elements help move citizen engagement from discussion to action.

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