Empowering European Energy Consumers

Anthropogenic climate change has caused widespread adverse impacts on nature and people, beyond natural climate variability. One of the largest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is from burning fossil fuels for energy, responsible for around 36% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, energy consumption seriously contributes to global climate change. Individuals are at the core of the energy transformation which is essential to mitigate climate change and to overcome the energy crisis. Beyond expanding access to affordable, reliable, and adequate energy supplies, the key challenges are to (a) encourage consumers to use energy efficiently, (b) convince consumers to gain more autonomy in the energy supply (c) accelerate the use of renewables and (d) widen the diffusion and use of advanced energy technologies (e.g., smart meter). The transition to a low-carbon future requires societal change attributing a new role to citizens, from passive energy consumers to active energy citizens. The European legislator presumes that consumers will play an active role in reducing CO2 emissions and in achieving the environmental and climate goals of European energy policy. They will be empowered by access to greater choice, to new technologies (like smart grids) and to new forms of participation (like energy communities). However, research into consumers energy behavior has shown that, in practice, they can meet these high and exceptional expectations only partially, if at all. The central aim of the proposed project is to support consumers in engaging in an active sustainability-oriented energy consumption as envisaged by the EU and national legislators by supplementing the legal framework that currently regulates the European energy market. In an interdisciplinary psychological-legal framework, psychological evidence will provide the basis for designing interventions that enable consumers to live up the EUs regulatory goals. It is our final aim to formulate evidence-based policy recommendations for the EU and national legislators to improve the common regulatory framework of EU energy markets. With this approach, we follow a growing trend in integrating the uptake of research findings into decision-making processes and policy-making, which, in the end, will make the new European energy market policy more effective in achieving its goals. Following a theory-to-practice approach we focus on (1) identifying ASEC (active sustainability-oriented energy consumption) behaviors of interest and developing a scientifically valid measure (2) identifying variables and mechanisms which are likely to work in changing consumer behavior and (3) embedding this knowledge into interventions which can be realized by legal prescription. Across six studies, we will use a mix of different methods, including a representative survey, experimental studies, and a large field study together with an electricity provider.