Citizens' energy company

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Citizens Energy Convention

A citizens' energy company is an energy management company in which citizen participation has a high value, e.g. B. Citizens are (co-) owners of plants for the production of renewable energy . Characteristics are also regional or local added value , the importance of non-financial, for example social or environmental goals, and openness or representativeness for the citizens of the region in which the energy system is operated. Depending on the legal form and owner, the characteristics are different. The citizens' energy cooperative is a particularly citizen-oriented legal form because it is open to the participation of a large number of members. Citizen energy in the broader sense emphasizes citizen participation with the slogan "Energy in citizen hands".

definition

There is no uniform, generally accepted definition of citizen energy . However comes first in all definitions participation ( participation ) of citizens on the energy transition in terms of the focus on renewable energies and decentralized structures of the energy industry. Citizens' energy is usually regionally anchored in order to establish regional structures. The term regionality is understood differently, whereby either the spatial proximity of the citizens to the energy system or the reference to the respective regional authority (municipality, city, district) is emphasized. In addition to spatial proximity, the social, technical and temporal proximity of energy producers and consumers and of producer-consumer communities are also spoken of in this context. In any case, the regional connection should create identity and promote acceptance for the changes associated with the energy transition. In terms of political theory and religion, the concern of citizens' energy can also be justified with the principle of subsidiarity and linked to the terms right to self-determination and self-administration . The made-up word prosumer describes the concern of citizens' energy that the producer and consumer of energy should be as one unit or at least closely networked. This is aimed at generating renewable energies close to the consumer. In addition to the economic and financial aspects, those involved in citizen energy emphasize democratic, social and ecological values ​​to varying degrees and emphasize them under the umbrella term common good . In some definitions it is emphasized that citizen energy is neither economically nor politically centrally controlled, i. H. acts independently of large energy companies and refrains from maximizing profits.

A scientific paper from 2013 defines citizen energy in the narrower sense using the following criteria to differentiate it from other types of organization for energy projects

  1. Actor group : private individuals and / or individual agricultural companies or legal entities (except large corporations) invest individually or jointly in energy systems.
  2. Form of participation : It is a financial participation with equity, which is equipped with sufficient voting and control rights, so that a control of the projects by the citizens is possible.
  3. Participation rate : The citizens hold at least 50% of the voting rights.
  4. Regionality : The investing members of society come from or are based in a region, whereby reference is made to common identity-building processes with regard to the boundaries of a region. The region is understood here as a subnational unit, probably also - apart from the city-states - as a smaller unit than a federal state. The common identity can, however, span the borders of federal states.

history

Citizen engagement in the energy supply has a long tradition that goes back to the end of the 19th century (see history of citizens' energy cooperatives in Germany ). In the sense used today, “citizen energy” focuses on renewable energies that are generated, stored, traded and used in a decentralized manner. As a social movement and civil society engagement (also grassroots movement ), since the 1970s, citizens' energy for renewable energies developed from the anti-nuclear power movement, initially without a legal framework and sometimes in conflict with established energy supply companies and other actors in the energy industry . The legal framework was created first with the cost-covering remuneration according to the Aachen model (1989) and then with the Electricity Feed Act (1991) and finally with the Renewable Energy Sources Act (2000).

meaning

The importance of citizens' energy for the energy transition results from the requirements of decentralized generation of renewable energy, sector coupling (electricity, heating and cooling supply, transport and industry) and the necessary acceptance of the changes in the region associated with the energy transition by the population. As a result of a study from 2017, the key factors of participation and profitability of direct consumption (i.e. consumption of locally generated energy without using a public grid) are given top priority by those involved in community energy. At the interface between business, civil society and politics, this form of civic participation is found in the area of ​​tension between the common good and the return orientation.

Financial citizen participation in energy systems can take place in various ways:

1 .: Active financial participation
1.a): Citizens produce with (eG, GmbH & Co. KG, GbR, ... - see Citizens Energy Society # legal forms )
1.b): Citizens finance with ( silent participation , subordinated loan , profit participation right , bearer bond , savings bond , ...)
2 .: Passive financial participation
2.a): Participation of residents ( land lease , resident bonus , direct marketing of electricity / heat , regional electricity tariffs , ...)
2.b): Participation of the general public (citizen's share, community foundation , municipality as operator, ...)

“Citizens 'energy” in the narrower sense (1.a) means that citizens produce energy as (co-) owners of a citizens' energy company. The following paragraphs refer to this.

Citizens' energy company within the meaning of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2017)

In recognition of the importance of community energy for the energy transition and thus the expansion of renewable energies, a legal definition of community energy companies has been formulated for the first time in Germany with the Renewable Energy Sources Act 2017 (EEG 2017) . Citizens' energy companies within the meaning of the EEG 2017 (Section 3 No. 15) are companies

  • which consist of at least ten natural persons as voting members or voting shareholders,
  • in which at least 51 percent of the voting rights are held by natural persons who have had their registered main residence in the urban district or in the district in which the wind turbine (s) are being erected according to the location information in the bid for at least one year before the bid was submitted should be (s), and
  • in which no member or shareholder holds more than ten percent of the voting rights.

If only several legal persons or partnerships merge to form a company, each of the persons or companies must meet these requirements so that the regulations on citizens' energy companies can apply to the company created by the merger.

This legal definition is related to the exemptions for citizens' energy companies in the tender for wind energy projects on land (§ 36 g EEG 2017). There were no restrictions with regard to a legal form (e.g. citizens' energy cooperative).

Legal forms

A citizens' energy company can be implemented in various legal forms . Typical legal forms for citizens 'energy companies are the registered cooperative (eG, known as citizens' energy cooperative), the European cooperative (SCE), limited liability company (GmbH), GmbH & Co.KG , the entrepreneurial company (limited liability) (UG), UG & Co. KG , GbR , the non-profit foundation as well as the non-profit association (eV) or a non- stock exchange-oriented corporation . Private individuals ( natural persons ), such as B. farmers, are counted as citizens' energy. The characteristics of citizen energy are weighted differently in the various legal forms. For example, in the legal form of a cooperative, i.e. a citizens' energy cooperative, the participation of a larger number of citizens is of great importance. The cooperative is typically open to a plurality of members. In the case of a GmbH & Co. KG, the co-determination rights are only secured for the management and the representatives of the company - i.e. only for a limited number of people - while the limited partners have hardly any say and co-determination rights, but only control and information rights (such as the Inspection of books and papers).

Business areas of the citizens' energy companies

Typical business areas of community energy companies are the construction and operation of plants and structures for the generation and sale of renewable energy, such as community wind farms , community solar systems and bioenergy villages . Further fields of action of the citizens' energy companies in the field of electricity are u. a. with citizen electricity ( regional electricity ), citizens electricity network (e.g. electricity works Schönau ) and tenant electricity . Development and operation of local heating networks and infrastructure for electromobility as well as energy-saving projects for citizens are further fields. Terms such as self-consumption (i.e. consumption of self-generated renewable energy), direct consumption (i.e. consumption of renewable energy in the immediate vicinity of generation) and direct delivery (i.e. the supply of energy from defined renewable energy systems) specify the term prosumer . Some citizens 'energy companies such as Bürgerwerke eG and associations such as Bündnis Bürgerenergie eV link these business areas as well as various citizens' energy companies.

Citizens' energy companies in tender results according to EEG 2017

The legal definition for a citizens 'energy company according to Section 3 of the EEG 2017 is related to the exemptions for citizens' energy companies in the tender for onshore wind energy projects (Section 36g of the EEG 2017). The results of the tenders since May 2017 show to what extent the legal definition made by the legislator in Section 3 of the EEG 2017 as well as the exceptions formulated in Section 36g of the EEG 2017 are effective in terms of the diversity of actors intended by the legislator (EEG 2017 Section 2 Paragraph 3; Section 97 Paragraph 1 number 2) are in the energy transition.

Legal forms of citizens' energy companies with awards after five tendering rounds for onshore wind turbines 2017/2018
Legal forms of citizens' energy companies number proportion of
GmbH & Co. KG 156 73.6%
UG (limited liability) & Co. KG 43 20.3%
GbR 7th 3.3%
eG 3 1.4%
GmbH 2 0.9%
UG (limited liability) 1 0.5%
total 212 100%

The analyzes of the tender results from May 2017 to May 2018 show that the legal form of the GmbH & Co. KG dominates, followed by the legal form UG & Co. KG, while citizens' energy companies in the legal form of a registered cooperative (eG) were only marginally involved in the tendering process and have received awards; some of these were still being established at the time the bid was submitted. Although community energy companies were appropriately represented among the awards granted with 93% (65 out of 70 in May 2017) and 14% (15 out of 111 in May 2018), the more than 1,000 established community energy cooperatives have not yet recognized the exemption rules for community energy companies in the tender for Wind energy projects on land used, unwilling or unable to use in accordance with Section 36 g of the EEG 2017. The political goal of diversity of actors was thus missed, as has been criticized many times. It was suspected at an early stage that the denied citizens ' energy companies did not represent the values ​​of democracy, participation and co-determination of the local people - that is, real participation , but that large professional wind power project planners founded the citizens' energy companies themselves and sent their representatives practically as straw men . The assumption was obvious, since many of the companies awarded were only founded shortly before the auctions. The incentive for this behavior was the exemption for citizens' energy companies to participate without a completed report on immission control and the small penalties if projects are not implemented. In the following months of 2017, these assumptions were confirmed using individual examples. It was proven that the term community energy was misused and the characteristic openness or representation for community energy was not fulfilled. As a result, exceptions for citizens 'energy companies were changed in the tendering rounds from February 2018, but not the definition of citizens' energy companies that are entitled to the exception regulations. In the tendering rounds from February and May 2018, for example, the number of citizen energy companies awarded the subsidy fell, the number of citizen energy cooperatives awarded did not increase (remained below 2%, i.e. 1 out of 83 and 1 out of 111 awards). Citizens' energy cooperatives remained underrepresented.

The Genossenschaftsverband (Association of Regions) calls for the realization of the citizen's energy goal to be a prosumer , that the legislature should finally create a framework that "equates the supply of members with the self-consumption of self-generated electricity" and "a citizen energy company regardless of its legal form at least 50 instead of the current ten people as shareholders "must show.

Adaptation of the definition for citizens' energy companies

Due to the problems with the definition for citizens' energy companies in the EEG 2017, an alternative definition was proposed to the federal government in February 2020. This proposal was introduced by the German Renewable Energy Association , the Bündnis Bürgerenergie eV, the federal branch of energy cooperatives at the DGRV - German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association and the World Wind Energy Association . The proposal essentially contains the following criteria for a citizens' energy company when granting advantages in tendering procedures for wind turbines:

a) Participation radius: The definition of the district should be omitted for wind turbine projects in which the local community is located directly on a district boundary. In addition to people from the district of the site municipality, other natural persons from the neighboring district or from the neighboring independent city should be able to be included in the company, provided they live within a radius of up to 25 km as the crow flies from the wind turbine project.

b) Local minimum share of civic financial participation, proof of residence: The local group of members / shareholders from the area must hold at least 60% of the equity and 60% of the voting rights. The local members or shareholders, including the management or the board of directors, must have their first place of residence for at least two years within a radius of up to 25 km as the crow flies from the wind turbine project when paying in capital or submitting the permit application.

c) Minimum number of local members / shareholders: Until the wind turbine is put into operation, the citizens' energy company or its member company (s) must admit sufficient natural persons to the company through a public offer in order to achieve a total of at least 50 participating natural persons. The company must be open to all interested citizens in the project area of ​​25 km around the wind turbine.

d) There is a mandatory holding period for twelve years after commissioning.

e) The size of the project is limited to a maximum of six wind turbines with a maximum total of 18 MW.

European perspective: Renewable Energy Community

The energy policy of the European Union , energy policy legislative initiatives by the European Commission , their directives and legal provisions are increasingly shaping the energy future of the European Union . On December 11, 2018, the Parliament and the Council of the European Union passed the new Renewable Energy Directive, which strengthens the prosumer rights to generate, store and trade electricity from renewable energy sources as well as the exemption of self-consumption from taxes (renewable energy Energy Directive, Art. 21 and 22, Legislative Package “Clean Energy for All Europeans”). Citizens' energy actors are defined as an integral part of the energy transition and are referred to in the directive as renewable energy communities . Article 22 of the Renewable Energy Sources Directive explains the right to be granted by the EU states that renewable energy communities can use electricity from joint, regional renewable energy systems jointly and without undue economic burdens (levies, levies, taxes) can. The European network of citizens' energy cooperatives REScoop is speaking of a milestone on the way to democratizing the energy industry. The guideline must be implemented in national law by June 30, 2021 at the latest.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franziska Kahla, Lars Holstenkamp, ​​Jakob R. Müller, Heinrich Degenhart: Development and Status of Citizens' Energy Companies and Energy Cooperatives in Germany (= Professorship for Financing and Finance at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg [ed.]: Working paper series Economy & Law . Volume 27 ). University of Lüneburg, May 2017, ISSN  1866-8097 , p. 6 ( PDF; 744 kB ).
  2. ↑ Citizens Energy Alliance : Citizens Energy Today and Tomorrow. , Berlin, 2017, p. 41, PDF; 7.4 MB
  3. ↑ Alliance for Citizens 'Energy: Definition of Citizens' Energy, accessed on July 10, 2018
  4. ↑ Lars Holstenkamp u. a .: Definition and market analysis of community energy in Germany . Ed .: Leuphana University of Lüneburg and trend: research. Lüneburg and Bremen 2013, p. 76 ( Study on definition and market analysis of citizen energy (PDF; 3,651 kB) ).
  5. ↑ Malte Zieher, René Mono, Marco Gütle, Christoph Rasch: Regional development with citizens' energy. (PDF; 5.1 MB) Bündnis Bürgerenergie eV, 2018, accessed on December 4, 2018 .
  6. ^ Jörg Radtke: Citizens' energy in Germany. Participation between the common good and returns . In: Energy Policy and Climate Protection . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-14625-2 , p. 722 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-14626-9 .
  7. ↑ Katrin Gehles, Julian Schönbeck: Climate protection with civil turbines . Ed .: EnergieAgentur.NRW. Düsseldorf, Wuppertal July 2017, p. 6 .
  8. ↑ Shaping the energy turnaround locally yourself - guidelines for public participation in renewable energies in Thuringia. We can do it differently. Thuringian Energy and GreenTech Agency (ThEGA), 2014, p. 16 , accessed on July 17, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Thuringian Energy and GreenTech Agency (ThEGA), Win with wind. Recommendations for action from practice . 2016, p. 26. PDF; 3MB
  10. ↑ Citizens' energy saving projects; accessed on July 10, 2018
  11. ↑ Citizens Energy Alliance: Citizens' Power; accessed on July 10, 2018
  12. ↑ Bündnis Bürgerenergie eV; accessed on July 10, 2018
  13. ↑ Marike Endell, Marc Elxnat, René Groß, Jürgen Quentin, Jürgen Weigt: Participation of the local community in a citizens' energy company with an award for wind turbines as part of the tender . Ed .: Fachagentur Wind an Land. Berlin July 2018 ( FA Wind community participation 2018 [PDF; 522 kB ]).
  14. ↑ Results of the tendering rounds for onshore wind energy plants 2017/2018; accessed on July 10, 2018
  15. ↑ Alliance for Citizens Energy (May 19, 2017): Take Citizens Energy Seriously - Check Surcharges Carefully ; accessed on July 10, 2018
  16. ↑ Daniel Wetzel: The dirty trickery with citizen energy . In: The world . June 22, 2017, ISSN  0173-8437 ( welt.de ).
  17. ↑ Those who pull the strings remain in the background ( Memento from July 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ); In: MDR (November 26, 2017); accessed on May 13, 2020
  18. ↑ Citizens' energy in a closed society ( Memento from July 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ); In: MDR (November 24, 2017); accessed on May 14, 2020
  19. ↑ Ralf W. Barkey, Chairman of the Board of the Genossenschaftsverband - Association of Regions: Citizens' Energy Companies: Preventing abuse and excessive bureaucratic demands
  20. ↑ Adaptation of the definition for civil energy societies and implementation of European energy law. (pdf; 1.2 MB) Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energie eV, Bündnis Bürgerenergie eV, Federal Office of Energy Cooperatives in the DGRV, World Wind Energy Association, February 1, 2020, accessed on May 13, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and the Council of December 11, 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (new version). (pdf; 1.3 MB) December 11, 2018, accessed on May 13, 2020 .
  22. ↑ REScoop.eu: A landmark day for Europe's march towards energy democracy , June 14, 2018; accessed on July 11, 2018

literature

Franziska Kahla: The phenomenon of citizen energy in Germany . A business analysis of civil societies in the field of renewable energy production. Ed .: Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Lüneburg March 15, 2018 ( leuphana.de [PDF; 2.7 MB ; accessed on July 2, 2020]).