BinBin J. Pearce

This chapter moves the discussion on by examining the conceptualisation of energy citizenship. Situating the reader within the authors’ understanding of energy systems as fundamentally social structures, the chapter adopts an inclusive perspective of the citizen in the energy domain. It posits that an energy citizen is not something one becomes, nor something one earns, rather it is something that inherently exists. This chapter expands the discourse on energy citizenship by exploring emerging (often normative) notions that shape citizen engagement in energy. It also acknowledges how engagement is framed by different processes, including political struggles for recognition and prescriptive institutional ideas about being a ‘good citizen’.

This chapter concludes the book. Despite considerable effort having been already expended within the academic communityṇ on conceptualising energy citizenship, a fundamental question remains. How can ideas around energy citizenship be harnessed for actioning fairer and more just citizen participation in the energy transition? Drawing together the key themes presented throughout the book, it seeks to conceptualise energy citizenship as a sociotechnical imaginary of the “roles that citizens could, or perhaps should play in the energy system” (Dunphy & Lennon, 2022, p. 435). Acknowledging its position as a contested notion, it provides an overview of its many expressions before summing up our definition of energy citizenship and the role it should take, along with potential avenues for future study.

This chapter further develops these ideas of energy citizenship, particularly the concept of the ‘good citizen’ in the context of system change as it appears to be emerging as the rapidly normative notion shaping citizen engagement in energy. Broadening this discussion on emerging normative expressions, assumptions, and expectations that influence how citizens participate in the energy sector, the chapter provides an analysis of emerging ideals of energy citizenship from a normative perspective, focusing on solidarity, cosmopolitanism, and resilience. Embracing this dynamic and evolving concept to redefine its normative significance for diverse communities and locations can significantly serve as a foundational framework for questioning the processes of inclusion or exclusion within energy citizenship discourses.

This chapter connects the discourse on participation and energy citizenship to reframe participation as a vehicle for citizens’ agency, rather than a mechanism for government authorities to gain legitimacy, acceptance, or control. The chapter explores how existing modes of participation can be enriched by incorporating a view of energy citizenship in the context of democratic processes to align the values of energy justice with the goals of the energy transition. It also considers the relationship between these modes of participation, expressions of energy citizenship, and its implications for energy justice. Finally, the chapter makes a link between how participation and energy citizenship as merged concepts may point the way to a “human-centred” approach to designing democratic processes to accompany major technological paradigm shifts within the energy transition.

This chapter begins by introducing the reader to the many competing visions, expectations, and role(s) being placed on citizens in the energy system as it progresses to net zero. It introduces the reader to past energy transitions and highlights the social and cultural drivers of technical innovation, along with the unequal exchanges that arose as a result. Noting the simultaneous rise of European colonialism and the transition to fossil fuel economies, the chapter also highlights how energy has framed geopolitics ever since. Questions of power and agency are also addressed, and while it does point to some optimistic developments in the recent past, it highlights the very real potential for the current energy transition to slip into a more dystopian future than has heretofore been promised.

This piece elaborates on a ‘new way of thinking’ (Einstein, 1946) that would contribute to overcoming the challenge of climate change and its impacts. This ‘new way’ will have us go beyond using facts and figures alone to persuade and cajole. It will have us stretching our moral imagination (Johnson, 2016) and empathising with people very different from ourselves. It will have us investing in processes of exchange which support the co-creation of knowledge and the future we want together.

To accelerate the energy transition and achieve the needed large-scale transformation to address climate change, different barriers including lock-ins and path dependencies, incumbent power structures and changing individual and collective norms, values, and behaviors around energy need to be addressed. In the face of these challenges, citizens are beginning to play a bigger role in the transformation of the energy system. For example, they are becoming prosumers (energy consumers who also produce energy) and are increasingly engaging in collective energy actions, including taking part in energy communities. In the latter instance, collective investment and consumption decisions are made together, and norms, understanding and behavior towards energy are shaped collectively. To better understand the roles that individuals and groups can play in confronting the challenges of the energy transition, we make use of and adapt Ostrom’s socio-ecological systems (SES) framework to analyze past examples of collective actions and to delve deeper into the causes and catalysts of collective actions. We show how this framework can be used to analyze collective actions across time and contexts, focusing on connecting individual and group behavior with changing societal norms and the corresponding barriers to change. By applying the adapted SES framework as a lens to analyze historical examples of collective actions that have resulted in a widespread transformation in social norms and structures, we identify similarities and differences between these case studies and the current energy transition. Confronting incumbents and the challenge of changing social norms and behaviors are among the similarities, but the specific tactics used to limit incumbents’ powers and the actions taken to influence the norms and behaviors differ. Lastly, we determine the key actors that influenced social and behavioral change, as one of the main outcomes of the analysis.

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This Special Focus highlights the potential of transdisciplinary research and learning to confront the complexity of the challenges facing society today. By serving as a bridge between science, practice and society, transdisciplinarity can be a means to help foster collaboration between diverse actors, question existing paradigms of knowledge co-production and build pathways towards transformation.