Cities and citizens should be empowered to invest and own renewable energy infrastructure

Expected between the end of 2025 and the early months of 2026, the EU Citizens Energy Package (CEP) is intended to “accelerate the transition towards cleaner energy sources, while ensuring a just transition in which all citizens can be actively involved and fully protected”.

Within the Community Power Coalition, we have been calling for a CEP that empowers communities, ensuring citizens and their local communities can take ownership and directly benefit from the energy transition.

See the Community Power Coalition briefing here

In June, the European Commission started a stakeholders consultation process on the Package.  At the beginning of September, Energy Cities has submitted its response to the consultation.

What do cities need from the Citizens Energy Package?

For all people and communities to be involved in the transition, local ownership of energy infrastructure should be incentivised as much as possible.

EU’s energy security strategy does not sufficiently prioritize local ownership of renewable energy sources (RES). Distributed RES production reduces dependence on non-EU fossil fuels and enhances system resilience. It also helps protect consumers from volatile energy prices as it implies the energy production models are less reliant on fossil wholesale markets, shielding households, SMEs, and local actors from high energy costs.

The citizen energy package should clearly state the importance of empowering local communities—including citizens, authorities, and SMEs—to invest in and own RES. This ownership provides revenue to fight energy poverty, support education, and drive local investment in renewables and infrastructure. Prioritizing local ownership builds public acceptance and ensures further RES development.

How?

• By providing support to finance local RES production, for example via national programmes like France’s heat fund. With €4 billion invested since its creation, it has triggered €14 billion in renewable infrastructure and reduced gas consumption by 40 TWh annually.
• By ensuring municipalities are trained and informed about the importance of integrating social value into public procurement. They should be provided with guidance at national or regional level, to ensure public procurement criteria goes beyond the price of products or services, to also consider how they are produced, sourced and delivered, including social benefits.
• By providing municipalities with stable resources to meaningfully engage vulnerable households in energy topics. They need to know how to reduce their energy consumption (from the adoption of energy efficient behaviours to making their homes more energy efficient), but also which instruments are available to access more affordable (renewable) energy solutions (from subsidies to energy communities and energy sharing). One Stop Shops, Energy Offices or energy literacy initiatives – at local or even district level – have proven to be successful for this purpose. Such initiatives could be managed and offered at regional level, for smaller/rural areas if necessary.
• By promoting formal/structural partnership between municipalities and with local organisations that have social objectives such as energy communities, religious and educational institutions, to increase knowledge of the local context, and reinforce one another’s impact.

Homegrown energy is people’s energy

A couple of weeks ago, during her State of the Union address, the President of the Commission highlighted the need to focus on energy security and identified “homegrown energy” as THE solution for affordable energy in Europe. But without the local level, there won’t be any homegrown energy nor energy security. That’s why the upcoming Citizen Energy Package is so important. It’s a chance to show that the EU is still committed to finish what has started with the Clean Energy Package in 2019, to keep people and communities at the heart of the energy system and get fossil energy out of it.