Householders come together to discuss the future of energy

At the end of this month the ENABLE.EU consortium will bring together citizens from over 80 households at the second of three intensive workshops.

ENABLE.EU is an important EU project which aims to bring the European Union a step closer to achieving the goals of its Energy Union – giving EU consumers secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy.

The workshop, taking place in Rome, will increase understanding of the drivers of energy-related consumer choice using participatory foresight to help create a roadmap for policy makers and others to use.

Foresight is a tool that allows us to explore a number of possible futures. It can help identify what will affect our lives over the next few decades and envisage potential changes in policies, strategies and behaviours, creating roadmaps that detail what we need to do today to shape our tomorrow.

ENABLE.EU is using foresight to understand how to encourage people to make better and more sustainable energy choices. Its three transition workshops will bring together experts and citizens to create a realistic roadmap for the future.

To begin with, 60 experts will be asked to envision future energy scenarios. Then, this month, citizens from 80 households will refine these scenarios based on their experiences, offering their feedback on enablers and barriers to adopting sustainable energy behaviours. Finally, experts and citizens will come back together to create a roadmap for the future:

  • Transition Visioning Workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria in June 2018 (for experts)
  • Transition Backcasting Workshop in Rome, Italy in November 2018 (for citizens)
  • Transition Roadmapping Workshop in February 2019 (where citizens meet experts)

You can read more about these activities in ENABLE.EU’s latest newsletter, which includes an article about the role of gender in prosumption, another about the energy transition in Ukraine and Serbia as well as a list of forthcoming events.

ENABLE.EU partners

The ENABLE.EU project brings together a consortium of twelve partners from across the EU, including Cambridge Econometrics, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster (Germany), REKK – Rekk Energiapiaci Tanacsado KFT (Hungary) and Cicero (Norway).

What is the Energy Union?

The Energy Union aims to give EU consumers – households and businesses – secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy. Achieving this goal will require a fundamental transformation of Europe’s energy system.

Read the Enable newsletter

Find out more at the ENABLE.EU project website