Can We Own the Energy Transition? From Policy to Practice Within the Framework of Psychological Ownership Theory

The energy transition is an unprecedented challenge, influencing not only the energy market and technology landscape but the whole societies. As social and psychological mechanisms appear to be at the bottom of this challenge, it seems potentially valuable to search for some clues in psychological theories. According to Suessenbach and Kamleitner, establishing the relation of ownership between an individual and environment becomes an important facilitator of sustainable behaviors and a valuable framework helping to understand the nature of this social change and to resolve the attitude-behavior gap (Suessenbach and Kamleitner, Psychological ownership as a facilitator of sustainable behaviors, 2016). As shown on the example of energy transition policy implementation in Poland, following these routes on state-level apparently is not enough to trigger personal commitments. But can the PO concept prove its value when used not only to analyze the nature of energy transition on a political level but when applied to a specific case study? To answer these questions we discuss the story of the biggest in Poland distributed solar power plant, situated in the center of Wrocław. This case analysis provides some insightful recommendations on how to establish psychological ownership related to energy transition issues successfully.