Community Energy Academy - Unlocking energy citizenship
What knowledge and skills are crucial for setting up and/or joining energy communities?
What are the knowledge barriers for energy citizenship?
How to provide reliable information and facilitate access to energy knowledge for citizens and communities?
Easily available, understandable and reliable information plays a central role in strengthening energy citizenship and energy communities. There is a large gap in knowledge and skills (managerial, financial, and technological) between authorities and market actors who govern the energy systems, and citizens who seek to join or set-up and manage energy communities. On one hand, support at the information level and the operational level is needed. On the other hand, there is simultaneously a need to simplify and harmonize legal structures.
The training session aims to 1) provide structured understanding of different types of knowledge barriers for community energy and other citizen-led energy actions, and 2) explore the integrated approaches and tools in European (e.g. Energy Communities Repository) and national level to better encourage citizens to take action, especially in setting up and mainstreaming community energy.
The session is part of the Community Energy Academy training programme (communityenergyacademy.eu). The session will be facilitated by ICLEI Europe and University of Graz as part of the EC2-project.
About the Community Energy Academy programme:
The Community Energy Academy builds on insights from the EC²-project funded EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It will equip you with the up-to-date knowledge about energy citizenship and energy communities (including developments in regulations and policies), a holistic understanding of citizen engagement in energy systems, and practical action planning tools and networks to implement inclusive and people-centred energy initiatives – starting from your community. You will learn about the different types of community energy initiatives and how they can be implemented in different contexts.
Next module: HOUSING - 28th of June 2023
What housing related factors and inequalities hinder people’s engagement in energy transitions? How can housing related initiatives facilitate energy citizenship ICLEI with University of Graz