New governance imperatives for energy planning in liberalised European markets?

Hélène Connor, Robert Gould, Christophe Rynikiewicz, and Rod Janssen, HELIO International

Keywords

Governance, public participation, policy-making, electric utilities, decision-making, civil society, energy efficiency, renewable, sustainable energy systems

Abstract

Traditionally in the past, energy suppliers, utilities and governments used to decide alone on energy investments. The consequence is that environment, society and health, the public welfare, have been sadly neglected: worldwide pollution, desertification, global climate change, pauperisation and social problems are the result. Nowadays, utilities and governments are fond of saying that energy savings are everybody's business and recently they have been promoting multistakeholders' processes in line with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention and other European and international consensus concerning energy and environmental strategy and policy. This approach, however, has its limitations and improved energy investments have not always resulted from these consultations. Obviously genuine citizens' involvement is required and civil society organisations have to be phased in officially into the energy decision-making process via some sort of users' councils.

In this paper, we briefly summarise the challenges that energy planners face and recall why the transition to sustainable development inevitably requires a 'knowledge transition' among various actor groups to enable them to better understand the available policy options.

We outline that these users' councils would allow citizens, as energy users: 1) to be better informed; 2) to be prepared to contribute to rational energy decision-making; and 3) to promote more actively climate stabilisation and sustainable development by favouring energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Conclusive experience in citizens councils and several interesting cases for the United States' Citizens Utility Boards (CUB), Denmark and the United Kingdom, is then presented.

Finally, we conclude with the research needed to create these institutions. The liberalisation of the energy market and the increasing role of local authorities in climate change issues make it all the more important to initiate the creation of such citizens' councils in each country and at the European level.

The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25th June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in the 'Environment for Europe' process. UNECE is the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.