The EU is making energy fairer and cleaner and empowering its citizens to take active part in the clean energy transition. In a time of geopolitical tensions, knowing your rights helps you save money, avoid surprises and make choices that fit your life.
Discover your rights, learn how to manage your energy and take action for a lighter bill!
Your energy rights
Did you know that all EU citizens enjoy specific energy-related rights and protections, defined at EU level, and set out in national law?
What your supplier must tell you, and what to check on your bill
Your bill is more than the electricity you use. It bundles three things: what your supplier charges for the energy itself (just under half of a typical European bill), the network charges for delivering it to your home, and the taxes and levies set by your government.
You have the right to clear, transparent information — so your bill should also tell you things like your supplier's energy mix and how your usage compares to last year.
How to spot fair terms before you sign
Energy contracts can feel overwhelming, and the details that matter most are often buried in the small print. Before you commit, you have the right to clear, fair conditions: a price or pricing method you can understand, the contract's duration, any early-exit fees, and what happens when it ends. Take a moment to check these before signing — and if anything is unclear, you have the right to ask.
How to compare offers and switch to a better deal
Because your bill must be clear and standardised, you can hold one offer up against another on equal terms — comparing the fixed standing charge and the variable price per unit, not just the headline number. That's what turns moving to a better deal into a real, informed choice rather than a guess. Comparing offers and changing supplier is your right, and it's usually free and quick.
How to get help if something goes wrong
If you have a problem with your supplier — a charge you don't recognize, a contract dispute, a billing error — you don't have to sort it out alone. You have the right to fast, free and impartial help, usually through a single point of contact in your country.
Country-specific hubs
If you live in Spain, Greece or Czechia, we summarise what is new on the energy market, share inspirational success stories (like the one about heat pump uptake here below), direct to national tools and support, and provide press and media material.
CLEAR-HP boosts heat pump uptake with a pan-European push
As Europe grapples with volatile energy prices and the need to cut fossil fuel dependence, the transition to clean heating has never been more urgent. Consumers leading the EU’s energy ambition response through uptake of heat pumps (CLEAR-HP) is an EU co-funded initiative reshaping how households across the continent access, understand, and adopt heat pump technology.
Realising the need for change
For most European households, heating systems are replaced only every 15 to 25 years. When the moment comes, consumers often lack the information to make a well-informed choice — and many default to familiar fossil fuel boilers, locking in emissions and high bills for decades.
CLEAR-HP was designed to change that. Coordinated by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and bringing together consumer organisations from Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain — alongside ICRT (International Consumer Research & Testing) — the project guides households through every step: from initial information to installation and aftercare.
For BEUC, the project reflects a broader mission. “Energy and energy efficiency are big topics for us,” says Sara Patrone, BEUC Senior Project Manager. “How can people afford clean tech? How can they afford paying high energy bills? We bring capacity building to consumers while also providing reliable information about clean tech, and what should be kept in mind before purchasing such products.” Heat pumps, she adds, are not a one-size-fits-all solution. “They can save money — but unless a home is properly insulated, they can cost a great deal. A key part of our efforts is to help consumers understand this important difference.”
Taking the first steps
Since its 2023 launch, CLEAR-HP has organised 59 workshops reaching over 6 500 consumers across seven countries. The sessions, held in local languages, tackled the questions households face most: Why switch? Where do I find a reliable installer? How much will it cost — and save?
In Bulgaria, project partner and BEUC member BNAAC ran the only fully in-person national campaign. “Communication around this workshop was really fantastic,” Patrone notes, “and very effective in providing a big, long-term perspective to participants.” In fact, Bulgaria proved the project’s best-performing country.
Response elsewhere also exceeded expectations. “Consumers were very happy to participate,” Patrone continues. “As soon as they heard about the technology, they wanted to learn more. And while the enthusiasm was there, the trust factor is what proved vital to the success of the campaign. We’re a consumer-focused organisation working alongside independent organisations, which makes a big difference.”
This trust was reinforced through rigorous product vetting. “The only heat pumps we recommended were those that passed our tests,” Patrone says. “We tested them in a real-world environment — not just under ideal conditions.”
From beneficiaries to energy actors
CLEAR-HP’s most innovative intervention is the collective purchase campaign: consumer organisations aggregate demand to negotiate vetted, competitively priced ‘purchase and install’ packages, addressing affordability and trust at once. In Belgium, Testachats guided members through the entire renovation process — from insulation assessment to installer vetting. In Bulgaria, the collective purchase campaign organised by partner and BEUC-member BNAAC resulted in 259 new installations of air-to-air heat pumps.
CLEAR-HP’s impact has also rippled into policy. The project’s 22 recommendations span fiscal reform, low-income subsidies, installer training, and one-stop-shop guidance. Concrete wins are already visible: Belgium’s 2025 tax shift reduced electricity levies and raised them on gas and oil, while VAT on heat pumps was cut from 21 to 6 percent for new homes.
A blueprint for Europe’s energy future
CLEAR-HP’s results — over 23 000 registered consumers, 424 installations, 376 tonnes of CO₂ saved, and 1.38 GWh of annual energy savings — represent a strong proof of concept for consumer-led, EU-backed action. Its workshops and guidance materials will remain freely available in local languages after the project closes in June 2026, continuing to reach households long after the funding ends.
Independent energy: ZEZ recharges its future through resource reinvestment
Croatia has more than 2,300 solar hours per year — one of the highest figures in the EU. At the same time, there are just three registered citizen energy communities (CECs) in the country, and zero registered renewable energy communities (RECs). Zelena Energetska Zadruga, or ZEZ (Green Energy Cooperative), is a not-for-profit, Zagreb-based energy cooperative that has spent more than a decade trying to bridge this striking gap between possibility and reality.
Founded in 2013 — six years before EU law would formally recognise the right of citizens to form energy communities — ZEZ has grown from a group of seven individuals into Croatia’s leading citizen-driven energy organisation: 20 employees, 2+ MW of solar installed, 600+ homeowners supported, and a teeming online community of solar enthusiasts.
Realising the need for change
ZEZ’s origins were inauspicious. “We took some of our initial inspiration from energy cooperatives that were developing at the time in Western Europe,” says co-founder Zoran Kordić, “and wanted to test a similar business model in Croatia. Unfortunately, that very same year the Ministry of Economy scaled back its state-backed incentive programmes for renewables.” Finding itself blocked for the time being from engaging in commercial activity, the cooperative pivoted to advocacy and education.
There were problems of perception to overcome as well. “We started as — and are still — a cooperative,” Kordić explains. “And while the term has largely positive connotations in Western Europe, it’s different in Croatia because the term is often associated with the communist past. It’s seen as an old-fashioned and unattractive way of doing things — also at the institutional level. An entity like ours runs on a model that’s pretty difficult to explain to banks.”
The EU’s Clean Energy for All Europeans Package, adopted in 2019, changed the legal landscape by establishing the right of citizens to form energy communities and participate in energy markets on equal terms. But Croatia has been quite slow to transpose these rights.
The results of a survey of 800 Croatian citizens – carried out by ZEZ in May 2026 – confirms this institutional gap with striking clarity: 71% of respondents expressed willingness to participate in joint energy production, but formal registration of renewable energy communities lags far behind more than five years later. ‘Croatia does not have a problem with interest,’ the report concludes. ‘It has a problem with implementation.’
Taking the first steps
Beginning in 2019, Croatia’s Renewable Energy Act unlocked investment in solar for households and SMEs, and ZEZ entered quickly and successfully into commercial activity. Now financially independent, ZEZ reinvests 100% of profits back into the organisation — a deliberately non-profit model unusual within the cooperative movement. “We don’t offer shareholder dividends,” Kordić explains. “Everything goes back in – whether it’s to purchase cars, vans or equipment, for educating our own people.”
ZEZ’s primary citizen-facing tool is Na sunčanoj strani (‘On the Sunny Side’), a free advisory platform launched in 2020 with EU EIT Climate-KIC support. In its first two years, the platform advised more than 3,000 households, helped 300 citizens apply for public co-financing, ran 50+ workshops, and reached 22 cities through 60+ partners. The platform’s Facebook community has swelled to 35,000 members — installers, homeowners, and enthusiasts sharing knowledge and experience. “This is a good demonstration of how a single NGO not supported by any institution can emerge as a friendly and trustworthy platform for useful information,” says Kordić.
From beneficiaries to energy actors
In 2023, ZEZ co-founded ZEZ Sunce, a European cooperative (SCE) that enables citizen installation and collective ownership of solar. The model is straightforward: members invest in solar parks on public buildings, receive a financial return, and — in the longer term — the ability to draw energy from those parks directly. A portion of profits is directed to energy poverty projects in the host communities. ZEZ Sunce now has 126 members and is preparing further projects.
ZEZ also convened Croatia’s first Energy Communities Forum in April 2024, bringing together 17 organisations — now 22 — working on citizen energy across the country. The Forum is pushing for a simple registration process, accessible technical and financial support, and an active role for municipalities in deploying solar on public buildings. Its target: 1 GW of new citizen and community energy by 2030.
Kordić is candid about what motivates people to participate. “I think the global geopolitical situation has a lot to do with current public sentiment,” he says. “People understand that electricity prices in Croatia are not realistically sustainable. Government subsidies are keeping prices artificially low and it’s just a matter of time before prices go up, so people recognise the need for energy independence.”
A cooperative for the long haul
ZEZ’s trajectory — from just a few citizens to an organisation that has become the de facto national platform for citizen energy in Croatia — is, in Kordić’s telling, a story of determination as much as strategy. The cooperative has been a REScoop.eu member from the beginning, including as a board member, and has built close partnerships with community energy organisations in Greece, Serbia, and Hungary. It has been selected as the only Croatian recipient of the Google.org Impact Challenge for Central and Eastern Europe, and has survived more than a decade without state support by consistently reinvesting in its own capacity.
The institutional environment remains the central frustration. “At institutional level, the main shortcoming is undercapacity,” Kordić notes. “In most cases it’s just a question of ticking boxes to satisfy minimum criteria.” But against this, he sets something more durable: the evidence that citizens, given the right information and a trustworthy vehicle, will invest in their own energy future. “Just over a decade ago, in 2013, we wished for energy in the hands of citizens,” ZEZ states on its website. “That was the beginning of our shift away from the traditional view of ‘electricity from an outlet’ — and that still guides us today.”
The Next Generation takes charge: POWERYOUTH and the case for Youth-Led energy communities
POWERYOUTH, a three-year EU LIFE-funded project running from January 2024 to December 2026, was created on a simple premise: the rights established by the EU’s Clean Energy for All Europeans Package are available to all citizens, including young people aged 15 to 30. But access to those rights is not automatic. Knowledge, confidence, practical tools, and trusted local pathways all matter.
In Poland, this challenge is especially timely. Energy communities are still a relatively new concept, but the landscape is changing quickly. “POWERYOUTH is about energy communities,” says Zofia Michlowicz, Project Manager at the Association of Municipalities Polish Network “Energie Cités” (PNEC), which leads the Polish pilot. “This is a relatively new topic in Poland but developing quickly. New legal opportunities continue to emerge, and organisational models are still evolving.”
Minding the gap
Poland now recognises several forms of energy community, including energy cooperatives, energy clusters, citizen energy communities, and different forms of prosumer participation. Energy cooperatives have become particularly visible: the first was registered in December 2021, and by July 2026, 775 were listed in the mandatory public register, with the vast majority established in 2025 and 2026. Yet registration does not always mean operation. Many communities are still working through the practical steps needed to share energy, cooperate with distributors, and connect effectively to the grid.
“Registration is the easy part,” Zofia explains, “but cooperation with electricity network operators and amongst the members needs to develop for energy communities to reap any benefits and savings.”
The legal framework is also complex. Energy cooperatives are currently limited to rural and urban-rural municipalities, although legislation extending this possibility to urban municipalities has been adopted and is awaiting approval by the European Commission. They also require either three legal entities or 10 natural persons to be established. For young people, who may have limited capital, property ownership, time, legal knowledge, or institutional access, these requirements can make the energy transition feel distant, even when interest is high.
This is the gap POWERYOUTH is designed to close. Across its five pilot countries — Austria, Greece, Latvia, Poland, and Portugal — the project works from a shared diagnosis: young people care deeply about climate and energy, but they need clearer routes into participation.
A toolkit built around young people
POWERYOUTH’s response is a three-stage digital toolkit based on the EU Youth Strategy’s “connect, engage, empower” framework. The PARTICIPATE tool offers a practical entry point: a space for young people, youth organisations, local authorities, and policymakers to engage in dialogue, voice their opinions, network and get inspired. The DECISION tool moves from awareness to planning, with a focus on photovoltaic potential and local project development. In Poland, this includes mapping that helps users understand where PV development may be feasible. The FINANCE tool then helps groups think through the internal organisation of a community, test business models, and assess whether shared renewable energy could bring savings or other benefits.
As Zofia puts it, the tools are meant to help communities “understand how the community could work and bring local benefits and savings” and how to organise themselves so that the idea can become viable in practice.
The digital tools are reinforced by capacity-building activities. PNEC has organised online and in-person sessions in Poland, including awareness-raising events, practical workshops with experts, and meetings with people already involved in operational energy communities. These sessions are not only about transmitting information. They are also about building confidence and relationships.
“Citizen-led projects require trust,” Zofia adds. “Sometimes people find it difficult to trust each other, but this becomes easier when they get to meet and know each other better.”
Pilots worth watching
POWERYOUTH’s five pilots offer different models for youth participation. In Austria, the project works with OurPower, an established energy cooperative, to bring young people into an existing renewable energy community, as well as create new initiatives that target youth directly. There, the infrastructure and cooperative model already exist; the challenge is generational participation.
Poland takes another route. Rather than creating new youth structures from scratch, PNEC works with pilot municipalities of Kęty and Niepołomice and local youth to strengthen the recognition of their role in local energy actions and empower them to actively build an active neighbourhood community. This matters because energy communities are not only technical projects. They also require communication, local legitimacy, administration, and persistence.
For PNEC, leadership is one of the decisive issues. Municipalities can play a strong role, for example through one-stop-shops, but citizen-led communities also need local champions who can explain the model, handle administration, and keep people engaged. “If we want more citizen-led communities, we need leaders who can earn trust, deal with technical issues and face administration,” Zofia says. “Finding people with sufficient knowledge and available time is a challenge.”
Youth participation can help meet that challenge while also addressing a wider social issue. “Their engagement is inspiring and brings a fresh perspective,” says PNEC Project Manager Izabela Kuśnierz. “One issue we struggle with is the high number of young people leaving rural areas for urban areas, whether in Poland or abroad. It is therefore important to empower those who stay and to help those who leave for education or work recognise that they can still play a meaningful role in strengthening their home communities.”
Small actions, big ambitions
For Polish communities, the benefits of shared renewable energy are not only environmental. They are also economic and strategic. Many households already understand the value of individual PV installations, particularly where co-financing has made them accessible. Energy communities can build on that familiarity and extend the benefits through cooperation.
Izabela points to another motivation: resilience. “Taking into account recurring market crises, another important benefit to mention is energy independence and not being dependent on external suppliers or at the mercy of fluctuating market prices.”
POWERYOUTH’s wider goals are to establish youth energy communities in Pilot countries and to engage at least 1,000 young people and stakeholders across Europe by the end of the project. In Poland, further development of energy communities will depend on whether legal, financial, grid, and governance barriers can be translated into practical steps that young people can understand and act upon.
That is why the project’s most important achievement may be cultural as much as technical. It is helping young people see energy communities not as abstract legislation or expert-only infrastructure, but as something they can discuss, shape, and eventually lead.
“One of the most gratifying outcomes of our work is the capacity-building programme and reaching people from various backgrounds,” Zofia concludes, “and how the sharing of different perspectives has contributed to the learning cycle.”
For a new generation of Polish energy citizens, that learning cycle may be the first step toward ownership — of knowledge, of local projects, and of the energy transition itself.
Even the smallest towns can lead: How MUSE DHC pilot sites in Italy are rewriting the rules of district heating
In the Valsessera valley of northern Piedmont, the mountain town of Coggiola has never been the kind of place that shows up in headlines about the energy transition. It is small, rural, and — like thousands of similar municipalities across Europe — was never built with the technical or financial muscle to plan its own energy future. That is precisely why it matters.
Coggiola is the Italian pilot site of MUSE DHC (coMmUnity-led actionS for Efficient District Heating & Cooling), an EU LIFE Clean Energy Transition project bringing together 10 partners across five countries to prove something simple but overlooked: that heating and cooling, not electricity, are where Europe's energy transition is stalling — and that ordinary communities, not just utilities, should be the ones to decide how best to move things forward.
The other half of the energy problem
Heating and cooling account for roughly half of all final energy demand in Europe. More than 70% of that demand is still met by fossil fuels. Yet most citizen-facing energy conversations — rooftop solar, EVs, home batteries — are about electricity. District heating and cooling rarely reaches the kitchen table, even though it shapes household bills, air quality, and local jobs just as directly.
MUSE DHC exists to close that gap. Its nine pilot networks, spanning residential, industrial, and public buildings, are each meant to produce a bankable investment plan paired with a community-led governance model — not a technical blueprint imposed from outside, but a community-owned structure. The project's targets are concrete: over €80 million in triggered investment and 83 GWh of renewable energy generated annually, once the pilots and their nine "follower" replication sites are built out.
For Francesco Roncallo, Head of Business Development at Engreen — the Italian partner leading the Coggiola pilot — the distinction between electricity communities and heat communities is not a technicality. It goes to the heart of what energy democracy actually requires. "With a thermal energy community, you participate as a community, not just as an individual," he explains. Installing a rooftop solar panel is a personal decision with a personal payback. Committing to a shared heat network is a collective one — investment, ownership, and risk are held together, which demands a "more complex level of awareness" from everyone involved.
Building trust before building infrastructure
That complexity is why Engreen's role in Coggiola looks less like conventional engineering consultancy and more like sustained, patient relationship-building. Engreen — which describes itself as a "Sustainability as a Service" organisation combining research, engineering, and community development — set up Newton, a non-profit partner, specifically to support municipalities and communities that could never establish or manage a renewable energy community (REC) on their own. "For small municipalities and individuals, it's impossible," Roncallo says plainly.
The obstacle is rarely technical. It's more about trust. Roncallo is candid that cost-benefit arguments alone don't move people: "You have to bring evidence of what can work — social or cost/benefit is not enough — you need to share success stories, especially from neighbouring communities." Incentives help, but less than people expect, since these are medium- and long-term investments, not quick wins. What actually works, he says, is something closer to word of mouth — personal conversations rather than public workshops or consultations. It's slower, but it lands. Having a recognisable institutional or industrial partner in the room matters too, someone who can vouch for the process to their own community or workforce.
This is also where being part of an EU-funded project becomes more than a funding line. "Having a project like MUSE, which allows sharing with local communities with EU financing, legitimises conversation around more topics," Roncallo notes. When the Coggiola valley's regional sustainability office reached out asking for help managing energy-efficiency investment, it was, in part, because Engreen's EU affiliation had already established it as a credible, recognised actor in the valley — a foothold that made the harder conversations possible.
Where the Living Labs come in
The mechanism through which this trust turns into a real plan is the MUSE DHC Living Lab — one of five demonstration clusters running across the project's partner countries, of which Italy's is centred on Coggiola. In practice, the Living Lab is a structured, iterative process: at least two rounds of consultation with the community, working through feasibility studies and technical options alongside a governance and financing model, all before a single investment decision is locked in. Roncallo is careful to describe his own role honestly — he is involved in shaping the plan, not in the eventual build: "I'm not personally involved in the execution phase." The Living Lab's job is to produce something a financier can act on, and something the community recognises as theirs.
A template, not a one-off
Coggiola sits alongside a growing portfolio of Engreen-supported renewable energy communities across Italy's rural and mountain municipalities — from Valsesia to Antrodoco to Pineto — each testing the same basic proposition: that regulatory frameworks and EU financing tools now exist, but the missing ingredient is patient, local facilitation. Roncallo's team is already looking to connect these separate EU-funded initiatives in the valley, hoping that shared visits and shared events let one project's credibility multiply another's.
None of this makes for a dramatic ribbon-cutting story. It’s slower and more procedural than that — consultation, feasibility study, governance design, investment plan. But it’s exactly the kind of infrastructure, in the fullest sense of the word, that turns a right to affordable, clean heat from an abstract EU target into something a small mountain town can actually build for itself.
Key facts and data
450 million EU citizens in approximately 245 million households are every day consuming a lot of energy.
Get involved – take action!
Whether you’re starting out on your own, building a family, or managing your own home, your energy choices matter. Here’s how you can make the most of your rights and opportunities
For renters: Check your first contract for these 3 things
- is your contract clear? Look for simple, transparent terms – no hidden fees or confusing clauses. You have the right to fair contract conditions.
- do you understand your bill? Ask your supplier to explain what each part means. If your bill isn’t clear, you can ask for help or get advice.
- can you switch easily? You have the right to change supplier if you find a better deal – often with no extra cost or hassle.
Tip: If you have questions, contact your local advice centre or Europe Direct for free support.
For families: Protect your household – know your rights if your bill changes
Running a household means keeping an eye on costs and comfort. Here’s what to watch out for
- advance notice of changes: Your supplier must tell you ahead of time if prices or contract terms are about to change.
- support for vulnerable customers: If your family faces financial difficulties, you may qualify for special protection or social tariffs. Find out what support is available in your country.
- clear, detailed bills: Check that your bill clearly separates fixed and variable costs. If something doesn’t add up, you have the right to ask for clarification or dispute a charge.
Tip: If you think your rights have not been respected, you can use free dispute resolution services in your country.
For homeowners: Compare offers and join an energy community
Owning your home gives you more ways to save and get involved in the energy transition.
- compare suppliers and tariffs: Use official comparison tools to find the best deal for your needs. Switching is your right and can often be done quickly and easily
- smart meters and energy management: If you have a smart meter, use it to track your consumption and optimise when you use electricity for even more savings
join or start an energy community: Team up with neighbours to produce and share renewable energy. As a prosumer, you can use the energy you generate and sell the rest back to the grid
Tip: Many countries offer guides and local support to help you join or create an energy community. Explore your options and see how you can benefit!
No matter your situation, you have rights and opportunities. Take the next step in Europe’s clean energy transition – for your wallet, your home, and the planet.
Background
The European Commission launched the campaign “Unlock Your Power – Your Energy. Your Rights. Your Choice.” on 11 June 2026, during the European Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels.
This EU pilot initiative is designed to empower citizens in the clean energy transition by raising awareness of their energy rights and supporting active participation in the energy market. Grounded in a rights-based approach, the campaign focuses on education, empowerment, and participation.
Unlock Your Power is being piloted in Spain, Greece, and Czechia, with tailored information and resources for each country, while also providing all materials in English to ensure accessibility for citizens across the EU.
Follow and join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #UnlockYourPower.