Print Email Facebook Twitter Trust, awareness, and independence Title Trust, awareness, and independence: Insights from a socio-psychological factor analysis of citizen knowledge and participation in community energy systems Author Koirala, B.P. (TU Delft Energie and Industrie; University of Twente) Araghi, Y. (TU Delft Energie and Industrie) Kroesen, M. (TU Delft Transport and Logistics) Ghorbani, Amineh (TU Delft Energie and Industrie) Hakvoort, R.A. (TU Delft Energie and Industrie) Herder, P.M. (TU Delft Energie and Industrie) Date 2018 Abstract In order to decarbonize the energy sector, there is a widespread consensus that the role of end-users in the energy system should change from passive consumption to active prosumption and engagement. This is of particular importance as an increasing number of technologies and business models are focusing on the end-users. These developments provide new opportunities for further technical and social innovation to smarter, flexible and integrated systems such as community energy systems (CESs). Through system integration and community engagement CESs assist in transition to a low-carbon energy system. Despite the high importance, there is limited knowledge on willingness of local citizens to participate in the local energy systems such as CESs as well as associated factors determining such willingness. Through a survey among 599 citizens in the Netherlands, this research analyses the impact of demographic, socio-economic, socio-institutional as well as environmental factors on willingness to participate in CESs. Factor and multi-variate regression analysis reveals that the environmental concern, renewables acceptance, energy independence, community trust, community resistance, education, energy related education and awareness about local energy initiatives are the most important factors in determining the citizens’ willingness to participate in CESs. Citizens should be empowered to take active role in steering the local energy initiatives. Subject Citizen participationDistributed energy resourcesEnergy communitiesEnergy transitionFactor analysisMulti-variate regression analysis To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5d765b9a-88ad-43f4-8b30-fe329779987f DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.01.009 ISSN 2214-6296 Source Energy Research and Social Science, 38, 33-40 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2018 B.P. Koirala, Y. Araghi, M. Kroesen, Amineh Ghorbani, R.A. Hakvoort, P.M. Herder Files PDF 1_s2.0_S2214629618300641_main.pdf 363.89 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:5d765b9a-88ad-43f4-8b30-fe329779987f/datastream/OBJ/view