Small and medium sized businesses are important actors in the energy transition because they can benefit from citizen energy initiatives as a consumer and also provide technical support to deliver them. Many businesses have suitable roofs, land, parking canopies, or distinctive energy demand profiles that make them well placed to host renewable generation, participate in energy communities, or join energy sharing arrangements where national rules allow.
For businesses, citizen energy can offer greater energy cost stability, reduced exposure to price volatility, reputational benefits, and stronger local partnerships.
Understand your role and context
EU energy frameworks, such as the Clean Energy Package, support the active participation of small and medium-sized businesses in the energy system. These frameworks enable actions like self-consumption, demand response, and participation in energy communities. The Citizen Energy Advisory Hub is explicitly designed to support small businesses alongside citizens, municipalities, and civil society, with a focus on affordability, renewable uptake, energy efficiency, and demand side actions.
Small and medium sized businesses can act as both participants in citizen energy initiatives and partners in collaborative energy projects.
- As participants, businesses can produce renewable energy on-site, share energy with others, or take part in energy communities, often leveraging their buildings, land, or distinctive energy demand profiles.
- As partners, businesses can contribute technical expertise, operational capacity, and investment, supporting the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of energy assets. Through these roles, businesses can help accelerate local renewable energy deployment while improving their own energy resilience and cost stability.
Get practical guidance
- Business-focused advisory services such as the Enterprise Europe Network can be used to connect with enterprises with similar ambitions. This network can support SMEs with guidance on energy efficiency, renewable energy, innovation, and access to finance.
- Check out this practical SME United energy transition step-by-step guide that helps businesses assess where to start and how to build a sustainable transition plan. These guides often include simple checklists and stages to move from awareness to action.
- Engage with local or regional energy agencies, chambers of commerce, or business associations that provide practical advice on energy investments and partnerships. Check out this map of energy agencies that you can contact for your country.
Meet Florian: A local restaurant owner facing rising energy costs
- Who Florian is: Owner of a family-run restaurant employing a handful of staff
- His situation: Runs a restaurant with high and constant energy use for cooking, refrigeration, lighting, and heating, and has seen energy bills rise sharply
- What he’s trying to figure out: Whether taking part in a local renewable energy community could lower costs and improve energy stability without disrupting daily operations
- What makes it difficult: Limited time to explore options, uncertainty about upfront costs and payback, and concern about committing to complex arrangements
- In his words: “Energy costs are eating into our margins, but I need solutions that work around the realities of running a restaurant.”
Florian asks:
How can my business realistically take part in citizen energy?
- Small businesses can start with low-disruption options such as installing rooftop solar, solar canopies over parking areas, or improving energy efficiency in kitchens, refrigeration, lighting, and heating. These actions reduce energy bills directly and fit around daily operations.
- Where national rules allow, businesses like Florian’s restaurant can join an energy community or take part in energy sharing arrangements, benefiting from locally produced renewable energy without managing a project alone. Tackling energy solutions collectively with the local community can also help businesses access renewable energy without bearing the full upfront infrastructure burden alone.
- Businesses with daytime energy demand, including restaurants, cafés, office spaces, shops, and workshops, are often well matched with local solar generation, improving the economics of shared projects.
How can citizen energy help reduce costs and improve energy stability?
- EU financing initiatives are increasingly aimed at helping small to medium-sized businesses to cut energy costs through energy efficiency and renewable investments. For example, the European Investment Bank and European Commission plan to mobilise €17.5 billion between 2025–2027 to support energy efficiency and clean energy projects for over 350,000 companies across the EU.
- Taking active ownership in energy can help small to medium-sized businesses reduce exposure to volatile energy prices by increasing the share of locally produced renewable energy and lowering overall consumption through efficiency measures.
- Participation in shared or community projects can improve cost predictability, which is particularly important for small businesses operating on tight margins. For a customer-facing business like Florian’s, visible participation in local energy initiatives can also strengthen community relationships, local reputation and customer trust.
What role can small businesses play as partners in citizen energy initiatives?
- Businesses like Florian’s restaurant can act as host sites for renewable generation, such as solar panels on rooftops, solar canopies over parking, or co-location with community projects, which helps increase project scale and shared benefits.
- They provide stable demand for renewable energy generated in the local community. This improves project viability while benefiting from long-term locally led energy arrangements that avoid volatile energy price increases, which was felt by many following the energy crisis in 2022 (following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).