Beyond energy communities: Comparing citizen engagement, barriers, and behavioral change across collective energy initiatives

As citizen participation gains traction in the European energy transition, diverse forms of collective energy initiatives (CEIs) emerge as key mechanisms for enabling stronger citizen involvement in the energy system and changing consumption behavior. Fully understanding all forms of collective energy initiatives is crucial to avoid the risk of misaligning engagement with people's lived realities, interests, and capacities, and to inadvertently alienating or excluding groups whose preferred forms of participation do not fit the dominant form of engagement. Drawing on original survey data from 232 participants across Europe, collected within the Horizon 2020 ENCLUDE project, this paper compares two main CEI types: Energy Communities (ECs) and Collective Targeted Actions (CTAs), across different dimensions including participant demographics, motivations, barriers, behavioral outcomes, and internal diversity of engagement. Findings reveal distinct motivation factors, participation patterns and behavioral changes. EC participants display broader, value-driven engagement encompassing both technical actions and lifestyle shifts. CTA participants engage more instrumentally, focusing on specific project goals with limited lifestyle transformation. While ECs face higher institutional and procedural barriers, CTAs offer easier entry but may produce limited engagement. Within ECs, a clustering analysis based on mean self-reported behavioral change scores identifies three profiles (Low-Engagement Members, Technically Driven, and Lifestyle Transformers), illustrating different participation and behavioral changes. Policy frameworks should therefore support a diverse ecosystem of CEIs, recognizing CTAs as entry points and ECs as catalysts for deeper transformation. Reducing participation barriers, tailoring engagement strategies, and embedding energy justice considerations are essential for an inclusive and equitable energy transition.