Energy governance, the process through which rules are set and enforced regarding the ways energy is produced, distributed, and consumed, is, to a large extent, controlled by states and (trans)national energy corporations. Hence, current democracies are ill-equipped to incorporate citizen’s perspectives in decision-making effectively. Increasing citizens’ influence in energy governance through public participation could help bring democratic answers to the interrelated energy and democracy crises. Conversely, people feeling excluded from decision-making are more likely to resist energy policies. While public involvement in energy governance has been advocated, little is known about whether and when people themselves want to engage in energy policy-making. This article explores citizens’ perspectives on their role regarding the (governance of) production, distribution and consumption of energy. We develop the “Participatory Capital Framework” to illustrate the willingness and ability of citizens to participate in energy decision-making and stimulate energy efficiency and sufficiency strategies. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 39 participants (21 in France and 18 in the Netherlands) living in areas distant from their national governments, recruited door-to-door. Following a thematic analysis, we identified three categories of factors that influence citizens’ willingness to get involved in energy governance, namely individual, collective and contextual factors. Sub-components explaining citizens’ (dis)engagement in energy governance are unfolded in each category, such as egoistic and biospheric values, collective efficacy, and (dis)satisfaction with current decision-making structures, respectively. The complexity of factors explaining citizen (a)motivation to engage in energy governance remains opaque. Nonetheless, the Participatory Capital Framework unravels the complexity of factors that scientists, policy-makers and energy stakeholders should consider when engaging the public in energy governance effectively.