The main vocation of Énergie Partagée is to support the reappropriation of energy production by citizens. This is being carried out on the one hand, through citizen’s involvement in the financial capital of these territorial projects, and on the other hand, through their active participation in pondering the elements that contribute to a sustainable energy transition.

Nowadays citizens and communities are able to organize themselves into NGOs, cooperatives or local businesses in order to develop territorial energy transition strategies and set up renewable energy production projects. To give you an idea of the scale, more than 200 projects have been identified in France and 3,000 in Europe altogether. What is more, the potential is considerable, be it in terms of resources or local actors to develop those initiatives.

Generally, renewable energy projects generate local economic benefits, but a well-managed citizen project can generate up to 3 times more financial gains for the territory than one carried out by actors outside the territory, as our study shows. In addition to local taxation and land rent, citizen and public projects bring more benefits to the territory because they employ local workforce and besides that, the dividends generated by the project are redistributed to local shareholders.