Young Smart Cities Learning Situation on:
THE PROSUMER CHALLENGE – From Householt to Climate Actor
KNOWLEDGE PILLS relevant to this SMART theme are:
Driving Question
How can policy decisions help households become prosumers and support a bottom-up contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from household energy consumption?
Learning Situation
Most energy consumption happens at home — heating rooms, producing hot water, cooking, charging devices, or using appliances. Yet households usually consume energy without knowing where it is produced or how climate-friendly it is. As renewable energy sources such as solar and wind become more widespread, consumption patterns matter increasingly for greenhouse gas emissions, grid stability, energy prices, and social fairness. The prosumer model offers a new perspective: households can both consume and produce energy and actively manage their energy use — but they can only do so if political and policy conditions enable the support needed to move in this direction.
Task
Design an evidence-based proposal addressed to policymakers on how households can realistically become prosumers. Working in groups, you will adopt one fictional but realistic household and analyse its energy consumption. Your task is to identify where and how the household consumes energy, analyse which prosumer model could reduce its emissions, connect this model to climate protection goals, and propose policy measures needed to enable this transition. The focus is not only on technology, but on political decisions that enable or limit household action.
Make sure you follow an enquiry-based approach so your proposal is grounded in solid, evidence-based reasoning. You will move through these stages:
Explore → Research → Analyse → Ideate → Present → Reflect