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Current government information policies and market-based instruments aimed at influencing energy choices of consumers often ignore the fact that consumer behavior is not fully reducible to individuals making rational conscious decisions all the time. Rather, the decisions of consumers are largely configured by shared routines embedded in socio-technical systems. To achieve a transition towards a decarbonized and energy-efficient system, an approach is needed that goes beyond individual consumer choice and puts shared routines and system change at its center.Here, adopting a transitions perspective, we argue that consumers should be reconceptualized as users who are important stakeholders in the innovation process and are shaping new routines and enacting system change. We review the role of users in the building up of new decarbonized and energy-efficient systems and provide a typology of user roles.

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