This journey is designed for households who want to take a more active role in the energy used at home. You’ll find practical guidance, tools and information on your role and rights, and real-life examples to help you improve energy efficiency, reduce household energy consumption, generate renewable energy, or participate in local energy communities.
Households are individuals and residents who actively shape how energy is produced, used, and managed in their daily lives. This includes homeowners, tenants, and residents living in apartments or single-family homes. Their role in the context of citizen energy can include making smarter everyday energy choices, improving home energy performance, becoming prosumers by generating and consuming renewable energy at home, or participating as members or supporters of local energy initiatives.
In many countries, households can also join or help initiate energy communities and share renewable energy with others, which can reduce bills and create local value.
Regardless of ownership status, households can play a central role in the energy transition, as they account for a 26.2% of energy consumption and their everyday decisions influence energy demand. EU legislation, including the Clean Energy Package, recognises households as energy consumers and prosumers. These rules help ensure you are treated fairly by your energy supplier, have access to clear and transparent bills, and, where national rules allow, can use, share, or sell the energy you produce at home.
Households can engage in the energy transition in several ways:
- Direct involvement: Actions to produce or save energy. Such as improving home energy efficiency (insulation, heating systems), using smart meters to manage energy use, installing renewable energy technologies for self-consumption (rooftop solar, heat pumps), or producing energy and sharing surplus energy.
- Indirect involvement: Actions from households that influence local energy systems without owning energy assets, including joining a local energy community, participating in public consultations/ citizen energy panels, or buying energy produced by their neighbours.
- Understand EU rules and support for Energy consumers and prosumers. National frameworks build on these EU rules, so it’s useful to check how they apply in your country. Discovering your rights helps you make confident decisions about improving energy efficiency, generating renewable energy, or participating in a local energy community.
- Notice the different types and benefits of energy self-consumption.
- Read this Guidance Document on energy sharing and community participation.
- Find necessary information on consumer protection and safeguards that empower you as an energy consumer.
- Get your household involved via the European Climate Pact, which can connect you to local projects, volunteer opportunities, and peer networks where you can share experiences and find local groups with aligned interests. The Pact also offers tools and challenges designed to support energy-related action.
Meet Sofia: Starting a citizen energy journey at home
- Who Sofia is: Homeowner interested in reducing energy costs and acting more sustainably.
- Her situation: Lives in an existing home with rising energy bills and growing interest in energy solutions.
- What she’s trying to figure out: How to reduce her energy bills, explore renewable energy options like rooftop solar or participate in local energy community, and get reliable advice to take the first steps.
- What makes it difficult: Unclear rules, costs, and too many information sources.
- In her words: “I want to have more control over my energy use, but I don’t know where to start.”
Sofia asks:
- Sofia can start by improving the energy performance of her home so that it uses less energy. Typical actions include upgrading insulation, replacing windows, installing more efficient heating systems, and using smart controls to better manage energy use. These measures reduce energy demand and lower bills regardless of whether renewable energy is installed.
- She can then explore energy options such as self-consumption, energy sharing, or participation in a local energy community, depending on what is allowed nationally. This may include installing rooftop solar, sharing locally produced electricity, or joining a collective project with neighbours.
- EU consumer and prosumer rights under the Clean Energy Package explain what households are entitled to, protect them from misleading information or hidden fees by energy companies, ensure access to clear and transparent bills, and give prosumers the right, where national rules allow, to use or share the energy they produce at home. Sofia can read more about these options and decide which pathway best fits her situation by reading CEAH Guidance Documents: ‘A citizen’s guide to energy citizenship’ and ‘Navigating EU support for your citizen energy project'.
- Sofia can connect with local and regional energy agencies and renovation one-stop shops that help homeowners at each step of improving energy performance or planning citizen energy activities, from initial advice and planning to connecting households with finance and trusted contractors. EU reports show these services help bridge the gap between homeowners and complex renovation steps. Check out this map of energy agencies that you can contact for your country.
- Sofia can explore case studies and real-world examples of citizen energy and renovation projects to inspire and inform her own decisions. EU initiatives and project repositories host collections of examples showing how households and communities have improved energy performance or engaged in shared energy solutions.
Examples include: