Answer given by Mr Arias Cañete on behalf of the Commission
25.3.2015
The Commission believes that consumers' engagement and awareness-raising are keys to build a sustainable Energy Union, increase social acceptance and meet the EU renewable energy targets by 2020 and 2030. The Commission supports several initiatives for these purposes.
In terms of consumers' engagement:
- —Intelligent Energy Europe programme supports 5 initiatives to improve citizens' information and involvement in renewables energy projects and enhance social acceptance.
Those initiatives aim at:
- —decreasing local opposition to wind energy (Wise Power)
- —providing consumers with information on renewables (CLEAR)
- —increasing citizens participation and ownership in renewable projects (Co-Power)
- —fostering local energy cooperatives (Rescoop 20-20-20)
- —creating a platform of investment opportunities in renewables (Citizenergy)
- —Horizon 2020, the successor of the programme, continues to support consumer engagement for sustainable energy under the societal challenge of ‘Secure, clean and efficient energy’.
In terms of education, Intelligent Energy Europe supports around 20 projects to build capacity in the education sector by developing teaching material, extra-curricular activities, e-learning platforms or computer activities.