Empowering citizens for the energy transition: facilitating role change through real-world experiments

Abstract Empowering citizens to take on new, more active roles is a central element in a successful energy transition. Yet, models that allow direct involvement and prosumer practices on the part of individuals are still not widely implemented. Real-world labs offer a supportive environment for citizens to experiment with new roles, allowing them to test transition processes within a protected niche. This study investigates the development of an empowering role change in the context of the real-world experiment “Your Balcony Network—Energy Creates Community”. The experiment serves as a case study to offer a better understanding of how real-world labs can support citizens toward an empowering role change that actively and positively affects the energy transition. In a mixed-method, longitudinal study, we first identify indicators of citizens’ role change in the energy transition and analyze their development in the course of the experiment’s first year. Second, we studied the role-changing process, identifying key mechanisms of change and contextual factors that accompanied and supported the role-changing process. Building on the “Embedded Agency Perspective” as our analytical framework, we applied a process perspective, empirically investigating how participants’ roles changed through taking part in the experiment. Our findings support the conclusion that real-world experiments can foster empowering role change among citizens, especially emphasizing the importance of real-world labs as places for experimentation, learning by experience, and networking. The study thus also contributes to the discourse about the impact of real-world labs.