Samenvatting

From past experience, the municipality of Groningen (GRO) knows that citizen engagement is an essential aspect to execute any plans that imply change. In particular, district energy plans need citizen engagement the most to ensure successful execution. Both GRO and Grunneger Power (GPO) have first-hand experience in this field, collaborating with citizens in a variety of districts. These experiences have respectively been documented in the District Energy Approach (GRO) and the Cooperative Approach (GPO), two overall approaches to engage citizens in the energy transition in their own district. Herein, all possible barriers encountered in practice (technical and economic, but also social, legal and governmental) are taken into account. Together with the other local partners in Groningen, the Hanze University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) and the research organization Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO), the Unified Citizen Engagement Approach was developed. This strategy combines elements from the above two practical approaches as well various new process descriptions, tools and methods researched and developed by TNO and HUAS aimed at increasing citizen engagement on different levels. This new strategy will not only focus on the development of energy communities, but communities within districts as well, and is aligned to several of the Work Packages (WPs). New and/or improved tools and methods will be linked directly to different steps within the strategy and their effectiveness will be tested and evaluated. The results will then be used to iteratively develop the new universal citizen engagement strategy, which consists of a toolkit that can be utilised in any district in both the lighthouse and follower cities.