It is assumed by the projects demonstrating the Positive Energy District (PED) concept in cities across Europe, that citizens should, want and need to be involved in new energy concepts like PEDs in order for these concepts to be deployed successfully. There is, however, no or limited scientific evidence that this is the case. The goal of this workshop was to make a start with researching the types and expectations of citizen engagement while also addressing the issue of how to validate the impact of stakeholder involvement measures on the success of a PED deployment.

The involvement of citizens and energy communities (energy citizenship) is seen as a key pillar in the energy transition. Citizens interact with the technical energy systems; they are both subject and object of social innovation in the energy society and are emerging economic actors in the energy markets. However, how to design and optimize energy policies that enable all citizens to take an active role in accelerating the energy transition, is still unclear. Also, the assessment of the potential impacts of energy citizenship and how to design and optimize energy policies that enable all citizens to take an active role in accelerating the energy transition, are still under defined.

This 90-minute hybrid workshop aimed at presenting and discussing the methods, strategies and expected impacts for citizen engagement applied in six different research and innovation projects in the area of Positive Energy districts. The workshop aimed at finding a common definition of energy citizenship and exploring how important citizen engagement really is for the success of new energy concepts. Also discussed was be the question of how to assess and compare the impact of citizen engagement strategies across 6 projects (ATELIER, +CityxChange, ENERGE, MakingCity, mySmartLife, Pocityf).

Agenda:

● Welcome, Mark van Hees, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (5 mins)
● Energy citizenship as a driver towards climate neutral cities – Can local citizen energy communities reduce GHG emissions significantly? (10 mins)
Introduced by Mark van Wees, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, ATELIER project
● CommunityxChange as a toolkit for empowered energy citizenship (10 mins) Introduced by Helena Fitzgerald, University of Limerick; Dirk Ahlers, NTNU, +CityxChange project
● Activating positive energy values: How to involve our schools as living labs for the development of new energy concepts (10 mins) Introduced by Natalia Romero , TU-Delft, ENERGE project
● Tools for creating energy citizenship for PED Designs in MAKING_CITY Follower Cities (10 mins)
Introduced by Beril Alpagut,Demir Energy; Joke Kort,TNO; Cyril Tjahja, Hanze University Making-City project
● Smart Change: Lessons learnt from concept of an acceptance journey (10 mins) Introduced by Gabi Kaiser,Steinbeis Europa-Zentrum, mySmartLife project
● Co-creating citizen engagement with sustainable energy solutions (10 mins) Introduced by Lia Patrício,INESC TEC; Joke Kort, TNO, Pocityf project
● Panel discussion moderated by Mark van Wees, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (20 mins)
● Wrap up, Mark van Wees, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (5 mins)