Citizens’ empowerment and participation are seen as strategic to meeting the EU’s energy targets [1]. In line with this, the new EU Renewable Energy Directive and Electricity Market Directive include definitions for “renewable energy communities” and “citizen energy communities” respectively and are expected to promote the implementation of renewable energy projects with open and participatory forms of citizen ownership in the EU Member States. Citizen ownership is already common in some EU countries, but quite uncommon in some others [2]. Furthermore, citizen ownership is very diverse. Therefore, lack of awareness about the multiple citizen ownership models that already […]

The role of science, models and communication in energy transitions

In the autumn of 2019, the ENSYSTRA project joined up for a workshop hosted by Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The main theme of this workshop was Modelling Energy Systems, focussing specifically on the application of models in science and the use of model results for policy and industrial decision making. Key questions: What can we actually learn from different types of models and what are potential strengths and weaknesses of different approaches? And what is a researcher’s role in the interaction with society and stakeholders?

The hosts from Chalmers University developed an interesting and intense […]

Energy systems in transition: A welcome to the ENSYSTRA project and a brief explanation of our research goals

By Benjamin R. Silvester, Former Lead Representative on the ENSYSTRA Early Stage Researcher (ESR) Committee – email: benjamin.r.silvester@uis.no

Hello, and welcome to the ENSYSTRA blog!

In our first instalment of our blog, I want to provide a brief overview of our project and outline some of our research goals.

The aim of this blog is to communicate the research, ideas, and experiences of the 15 early stage researchers (ESRs) currently enrolled on PhD programmes working on the ENSYSTRA project, and to update you, the reader, on the progress of our individual […]