In the growing bid to tackle energy poverty, an energy solidarity approach is people-focused, starting with those affected.
Experience across the European Union shows that, to date, uptake of programmes aimed at supporting people experiencing energy poverty is low. This highlights the need for better ways to identify who needs help and how to engage with them
Given their close links to both people and local institutions, energy communities (ECs) are well placed to take leadership roles in reconnecting energy users and energy systems.
Over the period 2021-24, CEES Partners committed to pilot a range of energy solidarity mechanisms from delivering ‘Cosy Kits’ to hosting Energy Cafés and carrying out renovations for low-income households. In parallel, several tried ways to raise funds to cover the direct and indirect resources needed to carry out such activities.
Challenges and insights from the CEES project
All CEES Partners found that Identifying and Engaging with people in situations of energy vulnerability was particularly challenging. Often, they needed to revert to first identifying and engaging with other organisations that had built up trusting relationships linked to other vulnerabilities.
The experience of CEES Partners emphasises that practising energy solidarity is an evolving process, full of trials, errors, failures and learning that eventually lead to success. Indeed, ECs embarking on this new journey should anticipate growing and changing – and perhaps even being transformed – by the process.
The CEES Energy Solidarity Toolkit describes mechanisms that Partners put into practice and includes both tips and cautions to keep in mind. Critically, Getting Started (the first chapter) covers elements that need to be put in place within the EC before it is truly ready to be a leader in energy solidarity, particularly the ‘on-boarding’ of soft skills to complement the technical and financial capacities typically in place. ECs need to bring their understanding of energy systems to communities in a way that engages citizens in a thoughtful diagnosis of relevant issues within local contexts. They need to be ready to listen while citizens describe their most pressing needs and then collaborate to select the most effective solutions.
CEES Partners hope that this Toolkit will inspire other ECs across Europe (and around the world) to fully leverage their unique capacities to deliver social impact through energy solidarity.
Click through to read more blogs related to ‘Getting Started’:
- ECs need to onboard new skills
- Summary of Energy Solidarity Tools
- Energy Solidarity to tackle Energy Poverty
- Aligning community needs and EC capacity
- The Energy Solidarity Toolkit
- An Evolving role for Energy Communities
- Understanding Energy Poverty, broadly and in local contexts
- Assigning roles: staff or volunteers