How municipalities support energy cooperatives: survey results from Germany and Switzerland

Thomas Meister,Benjamin Schmid,Irmi Seidl,Britta Klagge

doi:10.1186/s13705-020-00248-3

Abstract

BackgroundEnergy cooperatives are a prominent and common form of community energy. Community energy has the potential to increase actor diversity and local acceptance of renewable energies and has therefore been highlighted to be conducive to energy transitions. While research has recognized the importance of both the national and the local governance levels for community energy, it remains unclear how these two levels are related. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates how municipalities support energy cooperatives at the local level and how this support is related to national context conditions.MethodsThe study takes a quantitative approach using own survey data from Germany and Switzerland. Based on a typology of municipal support, we compare limiting factors and municipal support for energy cooperatives between the two countries as well as between energy cooperatives with and without municipal membership. By means of this two-tiered comparison, we analyze how municipal support is related to national contexts, specifically regarding national energy policies, and to municipal involvement in the cooperatives.ResultsOur analysis shows that municipal support can benefit energy cooperatives as it addresses some of the major limiting factors for energy cooperatives in Germany and Switzerland. However, our data suggest that municipalities only specifically address cooperatives’ limitations with support measures if they are a member in the cooperative. This indicates that organizational involvement of a municipality in energy cooperatives leads to a more targeted support compared to non-members and thus is beneficial to meet the specific cooperatives’ challenges due to national energy policy.ConclusionsCooperatives can benefit from municipal support, especially if the municipality is a cooperative member. Municipal support is likely to become even more important for energy cooperatives in the future, due to reduced national support for renewable energies in Germany and Switzerland. On their part, municipalities can benefit from collaborating with energy cooperatives, as they gain an additional instrument to implement municipal energy policy. Hence, supporting and seeking membership in energy cooperatives appear to be adequate strategies for municipalities to foster a decentralized energy transition.

Highlights

Energy cooperatives are a prominent and common form of community energy
This paper focuses on support by municipalities for energy cooperatives at the local level and how such support is related to national context conditions
Electricity markets and national support policies for renewable energies In Germany, the rapid development of renewable energies in the last two decades has been driven by three changes in national energy policy: (i) the liberalization of the electricity market following EU regulations in the 1990s, (ii) the implementation of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG, Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz) in 2000, and (iii) the decisions to phase-out nuclear electricity production in 2000 and 2011

Summary

Introduction

Energy cooperatives are a prominent and common form of community energy. Community energy has the potential to increase actor diversity and local acceptance of renewable energies and has been highlighted to be conducive to energy transitions. Other authors have emphasized the need for local acceptance and support for the development of renewable energy projects and the importance of local actors for community energy [18–20]. They can operate as collaboration partners, as shareholders in community energy organizations [21, 22], as network actors [23], as investors, or as buyers of the produced energy [24, 25]. With these different roles, municipalities are key actors for energy cooperatives

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion