‘The more data we have, the easier it is to take decisions, since energy citizenship is not a simple domain, rather it is complex, multidimensional puzzle. This means that data is needed if we want to increase the rate of citizens who are engaged in activities, who are changing their lives in terms of energy. Having more data means that it would be made simpler to address the actual needs that citizens have. The more data, the less complexities there will be in the future because changing the policy framework is not something simple. Therefore, strong and active collaboration is needed between researchers who are analysing the factors influencing energy citizenship and policymakers who are framing the policy environment. Data can support them in making things more simple, resulting in more citizens becoming engaged in activities that are related to the energy transition and bring benefit to their lives.’

‘It is important to have a pressure group which represents the interests of energy communities. In this way, they can influence better regulatory frameworks at the level of Member States. This is especially relevant in Member States where the community level does not have a lot of legal authority. In Member States where the community level has significant authority, its own income, and rights, there are community level councils. It is important that people get involved there because in these countries it is this level that is directing the zoning rights for projects in the community. Communities nowadays also have separate committees for environment and energy and that is very helpful to transfer knowledge and have structures in place which could also enable cooperatives and other committees for energy, for example.’

‘We can consider Greece as a good example. In Greece, there is a regulatory framework in place since 2018 and more than 1000 energy communities have been formed since the launch of the first law. At the moment, there are 1400 energy communities in place. I am not saying that all energy communities are ‘real’ energy communities – ones that believe in the principles of energy democracy – there is this problem. But many of them are very active – either for profit or not for profit. They are building new projects for the benefit of their members either by producing and selling to the energy providers or by using the net metering model so that they have minimised their costs. For electricity, they have paid upfront to be part of the energy community. In any case, there is a favourable legal environment. Recently we formed an alliance of energy communities so that we have one voice, a strong voice when we want to request or demand something, when we have an opposing opinion, and it is transferred to the Ministry by this alliance, like a cluster. Energy communities in Greece are developing through word of mouth: we are there and speak by example, we have invested our money and have real case studies of net metering and producing and selling energy. I hope this model will expand further and that more people and more families will be part of energy communities or form their own. My view is that currently we have enough energy communities in Greece. Of course, everyone is allowed to develop an energy community, but perhaps it is better to be part of an existing one than to form one from the very beginning.’

‘If you build a hydro plant in Norway, you have to transfer all rights to the municipality after 40 years. So everything you have built becomes public property after 40 years. The law of ‘Falling Back Home’ (Hjemfallsrett) covers hydropower, this is what it was made for, but it has also been used for some energy community plants such as small-scale hydropower plants. For 40 years we get a little bit of the money earned but after 40 years it falls back to the municipality and then the current owners just have to leave, they have no more rights to the plant. This makes a very big difference in how Norwegians look at energy, this is why they are very accepting of losing a river and why they are not accepting of wind power as the law does not cover wind power plants. This covers everyone – no matter your position in society, the old hydro plants are ours. There is also the question of what is an energy community, because in this case the energy community is the whole community, the municipality.’

‘In Norwegian policy-making, we need to de-couple climate and energy. We have the largest number of people in Europe who are negative towards climate issues and measures, but who are willing to address the energy situation. For example, industry workers are very positive about energy measures and negative to climate measures.’