The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy (RE) sources requires motivating consumers to change their consumption habits so as to balance demand with a volatile energy supply and to accept new technologies like smart meters. Consumer co-ownership in RE – “Citizen Energy” – has proved successful in engaging consumers in financing RES, thus becoming “prosumers” which in turn induced positive behavioural changes in energy consumption. “Prosumer” models, however, are still not widely implemented across Europe. Moreover, the typical “prosumer” is still male, middle aged and with a higher in-come whereas the participation of women and social groups vulnerable to fuel poverty is uncommon.
With the passing of the 2018/19 EU Clean Energy Package and the transposition in particular of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) and the Internal Electricity Market Directive (IEMD) into national law, consumer co-ownership in RE – both for individual prosumership and for Energy Communities (ECs) – received a new EU wide legal framework.
Project Objectives
SCORE responds to EE-06-2017“Engaging private consumers towards sustainable energy assisting consumers in becoming co-owners of RE installations empowering them and their municipalities. Concrete assistance for RE investments employing the inclusive CSOP financing technique aims at motivating citizens to increase EE and triggering a learning process among them, key to mitigate the rebound effect (the paradox that increased efficiency goes hand in hand with increased consumption): Only when prosumers have the choice between self-consumption and sale of the surplus electricity production, do we observe a statistically significant effect on consumption behaviour. Having this choice, every kilowatt-hour not consumed is a kilowatt-hour potentially sold providing a strong economic incentive for energy-efficient behaviour. In addition to low-income households, SCORE addresses women as being underrepresented and often belonging to the former.
Individual vs. Collective Empowerment – Empowerment in a vulnerability context must be more than the provision of consumer choices through access to information and consumption options. Here, the participation of vulnerable consumers in ECs as a form of collective empowerment has benefits beyond individual empowerment. Participating in a RE project may provide access to social groups other than one’s primary group when enshrined in a collective scheme like, e.g. a CSOP. Given that the socio-cultural context shapes among others, habits, values and norms which in turn have an impact on individual behaviour this is of particular importance for vulnerable households to overcome systemic disadvantages (e.g. higher rates of unemployment, lower education) and social isolation but also boosts the mentioned learning process.
Extending and modernizing the cooperative model – The cooperative model has been around since the 19th century and, where necessary, can be extended and modernized as a business and organizational model to meet the challenges in the RE sector. In contrast to cooperatives, the CSOP directly addresses the involvement of public authorities, e.g. local municipalities and strategic partners. It avoids obstacles related to the principle of self-governance and to the question of representation of municipalities on the board. At the same time members of an energy cooperative can participate in a CSOP when expanding an existing facility together with strategic partners or the trusteed entity in turn can be a cooperative. As a rule the CSOP will hold between 25 and 51% of the shares in the operating company of the RE-plant. Regarding the exercise of consumer’s voting rights, the CSOP offers flexibility: The articles of partnership may stipulate which matters are to be deliberated either by the trustee (e.g. day-to-day business) or voted by CSOP-members (e.g. strategic decisions). Again, as the CSOP business model uses the borrowing power of a corporation it enables the participation of vulnerable consumers that are underrepresented so far.
