The EU ensures that all energy consumers—especially the vulnerable—are protected, empowered, and able to actively participate in the green transition. Rights to fair prices, transparent contracts, renewable energy sharing, and data access are core to this evolving energy system.
A. Protecting and empowering energy consumers
1. Legal Foundations
2. Affordable and Transparent Prices
The EU ensures that energy pricing is both fair and predictable through a mix of consumer contract options, protective mechanisms, and broader affordability policies.
3. Energy Sharing and Prosumers
EU legislation empowers consumers to actively participate in the energy transition by generating, sharing, and using renewable energy—individually or collectively.
4. Protection of Vulnerable Consumers
5. Data Access and Digital Tools
6. Consumer & Community Empowerment
7. Resources and Support
- Electricity Directive (EU) 2019/944 lays out consumer rights, including:
- Access to multiple types of electricity contracts (fixed, dynamic)
- The right to energy sharing and participation in renewable projects
- Supplier-switching rights and protection against unfair practices
- New rules (2024 reforms): Enhance consumer protections and increase resilience through fair pricing, contract transparency, and security of supply. Together, these measures ensure greater transparency, contractual fairness, stable consumer pricing, protection of vulnerable users, and stronger resilience of the EU energy market during price volatility and crises.
- Electricity Market Design – Directive 2024/1711 (13 June 2024)
- Electricity price crisis measures: The Council, upon Commission proposal, may declare an electricity price crisis and implement emergency interventions for limited volumes .
- Protection from disconnection: Vulnerable consumers and those facing energy poverty are fully protected from electricity disconnections; Member States must enact appropriate prohibitions or equivalent actions .
- Supplier risk management: National regulators must ensure that suppliers implement adequate hedging policies to buffer wholesale price volatility and take steps to limit supply failure risks .
- Energy sharing: All households, SMEs, public bodies (and optionally other customers) must be allowed to participate in shared energy schemes within the same bidding zone or defined geographical area .
- Flexible connection agreements: Member States must enable TSOs/DSOs to offer flexible grid connections in capacity-constrained areas; users must install certified power-control systems
- Price Stability & Decarbonisation – Regulation 2024/1747 (13 June 2024)
- Investment incentives: Introduces incentives such as Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to stabilize consumer prices and support renewable energy investment, aligning price predictability with decarbonisation goals EUR-Lex.
- Contract Transparency – Recommendation 2024/2481 (13 Sep 2024)
- Clear pre-contractual info: Member States must ensure energy suppliers present fair, upfront, simple contract terms, free of hidden clauses, with adequate disclosure timing.
- Key contract summaries: Suppliers must provide easy-to-understand summaries of crucial contract details before agreement is signed—improving comparability between offers.
- Access to contract copies: Energy consumers must receive copies of contracts, pricing, tariffs, and standard terms, with responsibility clearly assigned at national level.
- Consumer & Vulnerable Group Protection – Directive 2024/1788 (24 April 2024)
- Fair market pricing: Suppliers can set natural gas and hydrogen prices competitively, while Member States must ensure presence of competition to protect prices.
- Safeguards for vulnerable consumers: Defines clear criteria for when and how Member States may intervene in gas pricing, ensuring targeted protection for energy-poor customers.
- Electricity Market Design – Directive 2024/1711 (13 June 2024)
2. Affordable and Transparent Prices
The EU ensures that energy pricing is both fair and predictable through a mix of consumer contract options, protective mechanisms, and broader affordability policies.
- Contract choice: Consumers can choose between:
- Fixed-price contracts for stability and budget control.
- Dynamic-price contracts that allow flexible, cost-saving use of electricity—ideal for charging electric vehicles or running heat pumps during low-price periods.
- Consumer protection mechanisms:
- Supplier-of-last-resort schemes guarantee continued service even if an energy supplier exits the market.
- Transparent billing requirements ensure that consumers receive clear, accurate information about their energy use and pricing.
- Affordability measures:
- The Affordable Energy Action Plan (adopted on 26 February 2025) introduces the Citizens’ Energy Package, focusing on:
- Strengthening consumer rights
- Reducing energy poverty
- Supporting vulnerable regions, including those transitioning from coal
- The Affordable Energy Action Plan (adopted on 26 February 2025) introduces the Citizens’ Energy Package, focusing on:
3. Energy Sharing and Prosumers
EU legislation empowers consumers to actively participate in the energy transition by generating, sharing, and using renewable energy—individually or collectively.
- Prosumers (producer-consumers) can install renewable energy systems (like solar panels) and:
- Consume the electricity they generate
- Share surplus energy with others, even remotely (e.g. within an apartment block or community)
- Sell excess power at fair market rates
- Under the Electricity Directive (EU) 2019/944, energy sharing is legally enabled, allowing households, communities, and public bodies to benefit from off-site self-consumption.
- This model supports the decentralization and decarbonization of the energy system, while reducing energy bills—estimated savings range between €500 and €1,100 per year for participating households.
4. Protection of Vulnerable Consumers
- Safeguards against disconnection for vulnerable consumers.
- Measures to tackle energy poverty, including targeted support and social policies.
- Integrated with broader policies like the:
5. Data Access and Digital Tools
- Implementing Regulation C/2023/3477 ensures standardized, secure access to metering and consumption data.
- July 2024 Guidance clarifies secure customer data access to power services like energy management tools
- Consumers can give third parties access to their energy data for services like energy management, switching platforms, or demand response tools.
6. Consumer & Community Empowerment
- Citizens’ Energy Communities: legal forms (co-op, partnership) to produce, share, sell renewables locally .
- Affordable Energy Action Plan supports local initiatives using cohesion funds .
- EU support services:
- Citizen Energy Advisory Hub – project development support
- Rural Energy Community Hub – tailored for rural areas
- Energy Communities Repository – technical assistance (Apr 2022–Jan 2024) Energy+2Energy+2Energy+2
- European Energy Communities Facility – grants support for ≥140 communities (2024–2028)
- A public consultation on the Citizens’ Energy Package (open until Sept 2025) will feed into further consumer-focused reforms:
- Enhanced consumer protection
- Increased support for vulnerable users
- Promotion of energy communities and citizen participation
7. Resources and Support
- EU initiatives and hubs support local action and empower communities:
B. Energy poverty
The EU defines energy poverty as a situation where households must reduce energy consumption to a level detrimental to their health and wellbeing, due to high energy costs, low income, and poor building or appliance efficiency.
It can also occur in summer when households cannot keep indoor temperatures comfortably cool, posing serious public health and social challenges.
Guide to Understanding and Addressing Energy Poverty (EPAH - May 2022)
Current Situation & Trends
EU Framework & Legislation
Measuring Energy Poverty
Recommended Policy Approaches
EU Support Initiatives
Key Interventions
EU-recommended interventions include:
Notable Member State Examples
Key Points
It can also occur in summer when households cannot keep indoor temperatures comfortably cool, posing serious public health and social challenges.
Guide to Understanding and Addressing Energy Poverty (EPAH - May 2022)
Current Situation & Trends
- In 2024, 9.2% of Europeans reported an inability to heat their homes adequately, an improvement from 10.6% in 2023, thanks to lower retail energy prices and energy efficiency improvements.
- 2022 estimates indicated approximately 40 million EU citizens were affected by energy poverty (~9.3% of the population) .
EU Framework & Legislation
- Energy poverty was officially introduced into EU energy policy in 2009, with strengthened legal obligations under the Fit for 55 package. This includes requirements to identify energy poverty in National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) and to take priority action in energy efficiency investments for energy-poor households.
- The Commission Recommendation on Energy Poverty (October 2023) provides 25 specific policy recommendations, emphasizing national-level coordinated action across social, housing, and energy sectors.
Measuring Energy Poverty
- There is no one-size-fits-all metric—Member States are encouraged to use multiple indicators, including low income (under 60% median), high energy spending relative to income, and poor energy efficiency of dwellings
- The EU-level dashboard provides comparable data across countries and supports national assessment efforts .
Recommended Policy Approaches
- National policies should adopt a cross-sectoral approach, integrating efforts across social systems, housing, health, and energy efficiency.
- The 2023 Staff working document (SWD/2023/647) offers detailed guidance, covering:
- The definition and drivers of energy poverty
- Measurement methodologies
- Policy toolkits
- Funding instruments
- Best-practice case studies.
EU Support Initiatives
- The Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH) serves as the EU’s flagship one-stop resource, providing guidance, training, project databases, and technical assistance for local authorities tackling energy poverty.
- The EU's Affordable Energy Action Plan COM/2025/79 integrates energy poverty objectives into broader strategies such as energy affordability, social inclusion, and support for coal-transition regions.
Key Interventions
EU-recommended interventions include:
- Immediate relief: Direct cash transfers, bill subsidies, energy vouchers
- Short-term support: Reduced tariffs for vulnerable households
- Structural investments: Building renovations, appliance upgrades, and energy audits
- Capacity building: Stakeholder engagement, public awareness, one-stop-shops, and dispute resolution services.
Notable Member State Examples
- Greece: Comprehensive energy poverty plan combining building retrofits, targeted cash support, and household energy audits
- Ireland: Warmer Homes Scheme has delivered large-scale thermal upgrades of low-income dwellings
- Finland: Formal winter disconnection bans with complementary assistance programs
- Latvia: Social housing energy upgrades targeting low-income households for measurable reductions in energy spending .
Key Points
- Energy poverty remains a crucial social and energy policy issue affecting nearly 1 in 10 EU households.
- The EU now embeds energy poverty in binding legislation, monitoring frameworks, and national planning instruments.
- Successful national strategies deploy a combination of social aid, efficiency measures, and integrated governance, supported by EU-funded tools and advisory services.
Energy communities
Energy communities are citizen-led groups—including households, SMEs, and local authorities—that collaborate to produce, manage, and consume renewable energy locally. They can legally structure as associations, cooperatives, partnerships, or non-profit entities under EU energy law.
They support the clean energy transition, improve public acceptance of renewables, enable local jobs, reduce bills, and help combat energy poverty.
They support the clean energy transition, improve public acceptance of renewables, enable local jobs, reduce bills, and help combat energy poverty.
EU Policy Support
Benefits of Energy Communities
National Policies & Initiatives
Support Tools & Funding
Learning & Networking
Key points
- REPowerEU targets include achieving at least one energy community per municipality with more than 10,000 inhabitants by 2025 .
- Renewable Energy Directive (RED II, 2018) and Electricity Directive (EU 2019/944) establish the legal basis for:
- Renewable Energy Communities (RECs)
- Citizen Energy Communities (CECs)
guaranteeing rights for participation and energy sharing across Member States
Benefits of Energy Communities
- Lower energy bills, greater social cohesion, and environmental improvements at local level
- Model cases show 20%–26% cost reductions and 6% emission reductions through optimized community-managed renewables and storage systems
- Across Europe, ~3,500 energy community sites operate as of 2023, with REScoop.eu uniting over 2,500 communities and representing ~2 million citizens
National Policies & Initiatives
- The Energy Communities Repository maps policies and regulations across EU Member States, showing frameworks in Austria, Croatia, Portugal, Romania, and others
- Examples include Austria’s amendments to the EAG and EIWOG laws, Malta’s transposition of RED II and IEMD, and Romania’s ordinances on RECs and CECs
Support Tools & Funding
- The European Energy Communities Facility (2024–2028) provides €45,000 grants, capacity building, and business plan assistance to at least 140 communities across the EU, Iceland, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Ukraine
- The Citizen Energy Advisory Hub offers technical support and outreach to local projects across Europe
Learning & Networking
- The European Energy Communities Forum brings together energy community stakeholders each year—the next event is in Kraków, 20–22 May 2025.
- Community resources and case studies are available via the Energy Community Platform, featuring guides, expert networks, and an interactive map of communities across Europe .
Key points
- Energy communities are a cornerstone of EU clean energy policy, enabling citizen participation and decentralized renewable generation.
- Backed by binding EU directives, these structures offer accessible models for energy sharing, cost savings, and social benefit.
- A robust support ecosystem—from advisory to finance—enables scaling the transformation across Europe.
Citizens’ Energy Forum
Annual forum convening consumers, regulators, and industry to discuss consumer-centric market evolution. Next scheduled on 5 December 2024 in Budapest
