Examining Citizen Preferences for Participation in the Energy Transition

Abstract

To mitigate climate change by transforming the energy system citizen involvement is crucial. Citizen involvement can help achieve these goals as well as accelerate the transition, by harnessing local knowledge for the improvement of plans, creating a support base and the opportunity for citizens to come up with their own initiatives. Therefore this research is evaluating the preference of citizen segments for different participation methods in the energy transition, for different governance levels. A Latent Class Cluster Analysis (LCCA) is applied to data received from a survey, resulting in a classification of respondents based on attitudes towards participation, which can be identified by some characteristics resulting from demographic values and attitudes towards climate change. Additional interviews with policy-makers and citizen representatives identified challenges and opportunities for the integration of citizens' attitudes towards participation and participation processes in The Netherlands. Primary conclusions are that there are no fundamental differences in the participation methods applied to different governance levels, just as the preferences themselves do not vary significantly. Moreover, the majority of citizens appreciate being involved with participation. Therefore, the effort for participation can result in automatic alignment between the preferences and central and decentral participation. One of the main barriers identified is the disparity between the system world, where policies are formulated and the energy transition is planned, and the living world, which represents how citizens experience and perceive these changes. Opportunities for closing this gap are sharing results of participation processes with different governance levels, improving information provided to citizens and improving connection with the community by becoming more visible and organizing more participation.