Project description
A new generation of near zero-emission citizens
For Europe to reach its ambitious Green Deal targets for greenhouse gas emissions, citizens will need to play a much more active role in transforming the energy sector. The EU-funded AURORA project will therefore empower several thousand citizens across five locations in Denmark, England, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain to make more informed energy decisions. They will monitor their individual energy behaviour in a mobile app, and receive automated recommendations in return. By crowdfunding local energy communities and building ca. 1 megawatt in photovoltaic power, these citizens will become active ‘prosumers’, transforming the energy system at large and democratising its governance. In particular, marginalised groups and young generations will be targeted.
Objective
AURORA aims at an innovative long-term citizen engagement with energy sustainable behaviours empowering civil society to adopt a leading role in the energy cycle and to be real actors of a sustainable change via the promotion of citizen science practices. AURORA Energy Awareness rationale will be implemented as a demonstrator in 5 European countries. AURORA rationale is based on the upgrade of social communities -4 university communities and 1 rural deprived area- to new civic consortia -established as local energy communities- to act as Citizen Science hubs. There, on the one hand, citizens will crowdfund a local solar photovoltaic facility in an inclusive system enabling low-cost shares from 20EUR, and on the other hand, participants will monitor their individual energy mix demand behaviours, which together with their energy production in the facility, will generate accurate know-how on the carbon footprint related to their energy mix behaviour, which will be managed through the AURORA app. AURORA proposes a novel labelling system to help citizens to better understand their energy-related impacts. Later on, interventions to modify their energy behaviour towards a more climate-neutral impact while fostering energy-savings will imply the involvement of citizens in individual and collective actions, covering from civic innovation workshops to home-made low-cost sensors or community infrastructures fabrication, to environmental observation for creating civic local roadmaps. The final objective is to generate the first generations of Near Zero-Emission Citizens acting as ambassadors for sustainable energy behaviours. As a consequence of the activities performed by citizens, data collected AURORA will also be able to improve energy transition scenarios including citizens' behaviours and learning periods and generate reliable data on the impact of climate on energy infrastructures.
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Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
28040 Madrid
Spain