Inclusive energy services to fight energy poverty and empower citizens

Why this workshop?

As the energy crisis touches more and more people, it becomes even more important to empower people in vulnerable situations to take ownership and benefit from renewable energy production. The previous winter has been hard. As summer comes in, different, but similar challenges lie ahead of certain parts of the population: people will suffer major hardship because of extreme heat or other weather disasters.  The situation is systematically worse for specific parts of the population: people with low-income, specific health conditions or those who are part of a minority. 

Short-term support doesn’t go far enough. Structural changes in the energy supply are needed to truly improve the condition of vulnerable households. A whole new business scheme needs to be invented.

During this session, city experts involved in the POWER UP project will share how they currently design and test business models with a social purpose. We will look into entrepreneurial opportunities and challenges of: 

• energy cooperatives 
• energy communities and 
• one-stop-shops. 

This workshop is co-organised with the like-minded projects Sun4All and CEES.

Other European experiences around energy solidarity and a more democratic energy market will be presented to inspire you – and hopefully to bring social innovation into the EU Commission’s current electricity market design reform.

Expected outputs

Local stakeholders wanting to engage in energy services that benefit the most vulnerable, can learn from existing experiences, ask questions and find interesting contacts. Also, the recommendations shared by the speakers can have a positive impact on the local and regional level (e.g. engagement of communities, promotion of participatory local energy policies), national level (e.g. energy poverty specificities, contribution to National Energy Poverty Strategies, NECPs or National Long-Term Renovation Strategies); and European level (e.g. decarbonisation, electrification and energy markets, energy justice and ethics).

The topics we will delve into are:

Focus 1: Business models: scenarios for the community

Focus 2: Public policy and legal frameworks: challenges for municipalities to implementing solutions to alleviate energy poverty

Focus 3: The co-creation challenge & engagement strategies

The workshop will end at 12h and participants are invited to stay for a networking lunch.

This event takes place during the EU Sustainable Energy Week, but it is not part of its official program.