Mobilising European Citizens to Invest in Sustainable Energy
At the beginning of 2019 Europe had more than 3.400 renewable energy cooperatives, or as defined in the recent EU-directives, ‘citizen energy communities’. More than a million Europeans are united in these REScoops to jointly invest in the energy transition from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable energy and energy efficiency. There are many more Europeans at home who are also committed to reaching this goal in their daily lives. They are investing in insulation, solar water heaters, in photovoltaic panels (PV panels), electrical mobility, …
Five REScoops from four countries teamed up with their European federation REScoop.eu in the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. Between December 2015 and February 2019 they achieved the goals set in their PDA project as shown in this illustration and created tools for themselves and other groups of citizens to accelerate the energy transition.
This project ran in parallel with the process of designing new EU-directives on energy: the Clean Energy for All Europeans package. This recognised EU citizens and their collective projects were essential stakeholders in tackling Climate Change. This booklet also highlights how the project partners responded to this.