ENCLUDE is made feasible through a work plan of seven Work Packages (WP). WP1 provides the management, coordination, and ethics requirements of the project. WP2 and WP3 create a deeper understanding of energy citizenship primarily in local contexts. WP4 and WP5 integrate these qualitative understandings via statistical approaches and modeling instruments. WP4 converts findings from WPs 2 and 3 to identify clusters of citizens that share common characteristics in terms of their energy behavior through applying data-driven models. WP5 models and upscales the decarbonization potential of energy citizenship, and of different energy citizens’ clusters. WP6 uses interim and finished outputs of WP2-5 for creating original training material for the upcoming leaders of energy citizenship in society through the development of the ENCLUDE Academy. Finally, WP7 delivers the synthesis, dissemination, exploitation, and communication activities of the project, realizing the ENCLUDE Interactive Policy Platform.
The first Work Package (WP) entails tasks related to managing the project, providing coordination, administration, and communication; ensuring high-quality deliverables in due time and efficient consortium work; establishing an internal communication system for the effective communication among partners; and formulating the Transdisciplinary Advisory Board (TAB) of ENCLUDE, as well as coordinating its participation in the consortium’s activities, in order to help deliver its objectives. Finally, this WP sets out the ethics requirements that the project must comply with.
Although the term ‘energy citizenship’ has increasing currency in discourses around energy transition, the concept remains under-theorized, and what it actually involves in practice is open to interpretation. It is a contested idea, with some commentators emphasizing a normative perspective focused on responsibilities and obligations of ‘good citizens’, while others place a greater prominence on rights, arguing for a more inclusive and participatory conceptualization. To this end, this WP aims to explore meanings and attributes attached to the concept in different contexts, capturing and characterizing the diverse forms of energy citizenship emerging within the European energy domain as well as in other regions of strategic importance to Europe.
WP3 studies energy citizenship from a group-centered sociological perspective, to understand the processes and factors of the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship. It builds upon the framework of “Energy Cultures”. WP3 will establish a structured and documented pool of relevant international case studies, which will serve as a study source and reference framework for the analyses. To examine these cases, WP3 carries out a survey covering a sample of 500+ people, in which quantitative and qualitative information on demographic, cognition-related, energy consumption, and energy behavior aspects related to the stakeholders' “energy citizenship” is gathered. In addition to this, it will be conducted in-depth interviews to verify survey results and extend the information from the survey, going deeper into questions that cannot be easily retrieved via surveys. In a final step, it will be consolidated results from previous analysis steps on potential factors leading to specific energy citizenship arrangements, their interrelations and trade-offs, and provides a basis for discussing these factors, as well as criteria for the effectiveness of energy citizenship with selected stakeholder groups.
The aim of WP4 is to identify groupings of citizens (clusters for decarbonization) at different scales of analysis and contexts so that they can be more effectively be mobilized by policies to accelerate energy system decarbonization. WP4 will initially qualify, in collaboration with WP3, key clustering parameters relevant to the emergence and fostering of energy citizenship, in order to enable effective data extraction from the case studies. Subsequently, based on the data collected from the case studies, the developed models will be applied to derive citizens’ clusters for decarbonization. Finally, WP4 will bridge the findings from the clusters with the modeling efforts under WP5, in order to facilitate the translation of the outputs of the clusters’ characteristics to inputs of the energy models. The decarbonization potential of these groups will be quantified by utilizing the models outlined under WP5, following an appropriate reconciliation of the models’ scale, demonstrating which groups are more crucial and responsive towards the acceleration of decarbonization.
By using the strengths of energy systems and integrated assessment models, this Work Package aims at a more holistic modeling of the energy citizenship concept, exploring the multi-scale relationship between its various forms and the decarbonization of the energy system. As a next step, this work package specifies the key uncertain parameters for the creation of decarbonization pathways at a micro-level for the different case studies under WP3, while upscaling the uncertain parameters at a macro-level based on appropriate assumptions and methods. Following, decarbonization pathways are modeled and mitigation benefits for different contexts and spatial scales are quantified. Finally, the decarbonization potential of strategic groups of citizens is assessed, to demonstrate which clusters are more crucial and responsive to accelerate decarbonization, and provide guidance to policymakers on targeting strategic groups of energy citizens across different contexts.
This work package aims to catalyze a chain reaction of citizen engagement for decarbonization actions. This bottom-up mobilization is catalyzed by the training of a diverse, motivated group of citizens, informed by the latest content knowledge generated by ENCLUDE, and also on existing knowledge of effective methods of collective action and collaborative decision-making processes applied to complex problems and societal transformations. The participants for this training are identified using the clustering (interim) output from WP4 to determine which types of individuals might be most responsive or likely to mobilize decarbonization actions. These energy citizenship leaders will be encouraged to use the training to start energy citizenship initiatives in their own communities, triggering larger circles of participation that is otherwise not reached by top-down approaches.
WP7 aims to promote and disseminate ENCLUDE activities and results from WPs 2-6, as well as to maximize its impact and exploitation/replication potential, both during and after the project’s life. Communication and dissemination activities, consider the new norm under COVID-19 conditions, will be designed to reach stakeholders including science, policymakers, business, civil society. There is an increasing need to fill the gap between scientific, ‘complex’ dissemination to experts, ‘simplified’ communication to general public target audiences. Towards this direction, this WP will organize a constant dialogue between the project team and target stakeholder groups, turning the project key findings and lessons learned into shorter and easy-to-access material using common language rather than specialist terms that speak to citizens.
The 'ethics requirements' that the project must comply with are included as deliverables in this work package.