Assignment
Many regions in Europe see a common challenge of achieving energy resilience and self-sufficiency. This is crucial for the overall EU energy transition, and specifically for rural communities. These regions are located at the end of outdated electricity grids, making them vulnerable to energy shortages, especially with increasing electrification and limited capacity. Additionally, spatial constraints pose difficulties in selecting appropriate production systems.
Energy cooperation Noaber-Energie in Bathmen has set up a program, BattumUp, to help stakeholders in the Bathmen area, such as citizens and farmers, but also energy companies such as Enexis. Specifically, they focus on assisting house owners to reduce their energy consumption, promoting fermenting manure to produce methane gas for heating purposes, circular agriculture, energy production with PV and wind turbines, and to reduce nitrogen and methane emissions. BattumUp involves the entire community in the transition towards sustainability, especially the energy transition. Noaber-Energie collaborates with Deventer Municipality to make BattumUp a success.
More understanding is needed how active participation in community initiatives can be stimulated, and how these initiatives motivate people to stay involved. Therefore BattumUp aims to answer questions such as:
- How can we change citizens’ behaviour effectively?
- How can we motivate people to participate in BattumUp?
- How can we recruit and motivate volunteers to go door-to-door to reach out to home owners?
- How can we use Instagram effectively?
- What can we learn from the activities and strategies of other energy communities?
This project is part of an ongoing research programme in which the dept. Psychology of Conflict, Risk, & Safety (PCRS) collaborates with stakeholders such as Noaber-Energie and Deventer Municipality.
Keywords
Resilience; Energy communities; Group efficacy; Empowerment; Social action
Availability
Two students
Interested?
Please contact Steven Watson (s.j.watson@utwente.nl).