Citizens' energy cooperative

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Citizens' energy cooperatives (often simply referred to as energy cooperatives ) are actors in the energy industry in the legal form of a cooperative , which mostly pursue the goal of decentralized , group-independent and ecological energy generation. They are a form of citizen participation , primarily at the municipal or regional level, and offer the opportunity to actively participate in the energy transition. They also offer investment opportunities in local and regional energy projects.

The German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) 2016/2017 uses the more general term citizens ' energy company .

Goals and Diffusion

The business operations often concern the construction and operation of plants for the production of renewable energies or the participation in such plants. Further activities relate to the construction and operation of combined heat and power plants (use of combined heat and power ), public participation in municipal utilities, and the purchase and operation of gas and electricity networks. The implementation of energy efficiency measures such as B. the energetic renovation of buildings, the replacement of lighting systems with energy-saving light sources ( e.g. LEDs ) and advising members on energy issues can be business models. While some cooperatives pursue broad business models and invest in different technologies for the purpose of risk diversification, others specialize in a certain technology, often photovoltaic or wind turbines . These cooperatives are also referred to as solar cooperatives or wind energy cooperatives, depending on their technology .

In recent years, community energy cooperatives have been set up in a number of countries, notably Canada , the United States , the United Kingdom , Denmark and Germany . At the end of 2012 there were more than 700 citizens' energy cooperatives in Germany, while the number of energy cooperatives in the Netherlands was estimated at 150 to 300. In France there is an energy cooperative called Enercoop , which is active both in the decentralized production of renewable energies and as a supply company. At the end of 2014 Enercoop consisted of 10 regional cooperatives and had 23,000 customers of which around 60% are also shareholders. The EU network of energy cooperatives REScoop.eu has existed since 2011 . In 2015 it had 20 members from 12 countries, including the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association (DGRV). Based on the entries in the commercial register , the Federal Research Institute for Forests, Snow and Landscape counted 249 energy cooperatives in Switzerland (as of 2016).

Typically, citizens' energy cooperatives worldwide follow the seven principles that were adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance in 1995 : Voluntary and open membership, democratic membership control, economic participation of members, autonomy and independence, training, advanced training and information, cooperation with other cooperatives and provision for the community .

History (Germany)

Citizen engagement in energy supply has a long tradition in Germany. As early as the end of the 19th century, several energy cooperatives were founded in rural areas to produce electrical energy or to build and operate a distribution network. The background to this was that larger energy companies usually had no economic interest in setting up a power grid in sparsely populated regions, as this would not have paid off there due to the low power consumption. This number grew in the first half of the 20th century to about 6,000 electricity cooperatives, before the number from the late 1930s during and after the Third Reich and the like. a. as a result of efforts to concentrate in the energy sector and forced closings fell again. Of these, just under 50 survived until 2012.

At a time when there were no nationwide energy distribution networks, isolated solutions for the energy supply, especially the power supply, were guaranteed by cooperative companies. With the construction of coal and oil-fired large power plants, and later nuclear power plants, the number and importance of energy cooperatives fell sharply from the middle of the 20th century. It was only with the opening of the energy markets and thus the possibility for customers to freely choose the electricity provider that there was a revival of cooperative structures in the energy sector. This led to the fact that a number of electricity sales organizations were founded, including those organized as cooperatives, such as Greenpeace Energy eG founded in 1999 or Bürgerwerke eG founded in 2013 .

Number of energy cooperatives in Germany
Citizen wind turbine of the South Hessian citizen energy cooperative Starkenburg

development

In connection with the energy turnaround and supported by the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), the number of cooperatively organized energy producers, in particular the public solar system operators, has increased since the early 2000s. More than half of all new cooperatives are currently established in the energy, environment and water sectors. 812 community energy cooperatives were founded between 2006 and 2015. Most cooperatives implement projects with a high equity ratio of around 50 percent. 10% of the cooperatives sell their electricity themselves, 52% are planning regional direct marketing. The focus of investment is on photovoltaic systems. Every second energy cooperative (53 percent) was planning additional investments in solar systems for the next twelve months in a 2013 survey. 41% of the cooperatives also want to invest in wind turbines; In addition, some cooperatives invest in combined heat and power plants and other forms of energy.

The number of citizens' energy cooperatives increased rapidly, especially from 2008 onwards. From 2008 to 2011, the number of energy cooperatives with renewable energies quadrupled. More than 150 energy cooperatives were founded in 2011 alone. In the same year, over 80,000 citizens got involved in cooperative citizen power plants and invested around 800 million euros in the energy transition . Mostly it was a question of joint solar systems, in which small investments are possible. The German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association therefore praised energy cooperatives as drivers of the energy transition, as they create a favorable framework for citizens to get involved in the conversion of the energy supply on site and increase acceptance for energy projects in the region.

As a result, there were already around 450 energy cooperatives in 2012, around 80 percent of which were active in electricity production. In the same year, the community-owned power plants produced around 580 million kilowatt hours of green electricity, with which they can theoretically cover the electricity needs of 160,000 households per year. From a regional perspective, start-ups were most common in the large states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony. At the end of 2013, 888 energy cooperatives were committed to the expansion of renewable energies, compared to 754 in 2012 (i.e. plus 18%). The cooperatives had around 136,000 members, 90% of whom were private individuals. The number of members grew by over 50% within a year. The number of energy cooperatives also continued to grow. The total invested up to 2013 was just under 1.2 billion euros, with individual energy cooperatives enabling participation from as little as 50 euros, but usually denominations of 500 or 1000 euros are provided.

In 2014, the activities of the citizens' energy cooperatives stalled. According to the DGRV, a major reason for this was the uncertain political framework due to the amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act 2014 and the introduction of the Capital Investment Code , which were perceived as an obstacle to public participation. As a result, the number of new energy cooperatives being established each year hit a low of just 54 in 2014 - in 2013 it was 129.

New foundations.jpg

Initially, it was feared that the 2017 EEG amendment would accelerate this trend due to the unfavorable framework conditions of the citizens' energy companies. Instead, the EEG 2017 compensates for the fact that, although it does not grant citizens' energy companies a fixed price for electricity feed-in, it does award the contract when tendering funding capacities under certain conditions. As a result, in the first round of tenders since the EEG 2017 came into force, citizens' energy companies received 93 percent of all awards. In the second round of tenders, too, community energy companies dominated with 90 percent of the bids and 95 percent of the bid volume. However, the citizens 'energy companies that have been awarded are not citizens' energy cooperatives, but rather companies in the legal form of a GmbH & Co. KG that are partners of wind power companies. The actual purpose of community energy projects, namely value creation and local participation and thus acceptance in the region, is not guaranteed in this way.

Examples

Citizens' energy cooperatives are small, decentralized units that network with one another in a self-organized manner. Cooperative bioenergy villages go one step further in rural areas by pursuing the goal of realizing the entire power and heat supply themselves. Citizens' energy cooperatives are also founded in cities in order to enable citizens to participate in municipal utilities through to taking over entire gas and / or electricity networks.

In the course of the discussion about rising gas prices, the Bremer Energiehaus-Genossenschaft was founded in 2006 . It was one of the first alternative providers on the gas market and its founding and its activities since then have received some national media attention.

The Elektrizitätswerke Schönau , initially run as a GmbH from 1994, founded a cooperative in September 2009 for their almost 90,000 electricity customers.

Not all start-up projects in the following years were successful. The nationwide cooperative Energie in Bürgerhand was founded in 2009 and wanted to realize the idea of ​​an ecological and future-oriented energy industry. The plan was to buy the municipal holding company Thüga from the energy company E.ON. The project failed and the cooperative was dissolved in 2013.

Jena was the first major city in Germany to decide to sell 2% of the energy division of Stadtwerke Jena to Bürgerenergie Jena eG. In the Rhine-Main area has Mittelstadt Morfelden-Walldorf during the remunicipalisation citizens energy Rhein Main eG involved their gas and electricity network 1 January 2017, with 5% of the net ownership society.

In Thuringia and Bavaria there has been an electricity tariff (so-called eco-regional electricity tariff, regional electricity ) since 2013/2014 in cooperation with energy cooperatives , which markets the solar electricity generated in the region on site. Since the beginning of 2017, Thuringian electricity has been distributed via Bürgerwerke , a nationwide association of energy cooperatives. The solar power is bought directly from the operators of solar systems at a higher price than the feed-in tariff. The feed-in tariff does not apply. This electricity is then sold directly to local consumers. The electricity stays in the local electricity network, which means that there are no network charges and the electricity tariff is therefore cheap.

On April 29, 2014, Bavarian citizens' energy cooperatives founded the Verein Bürgerenergie Bayern eV (abbreviation: BEBay). The state association bundles the economic, political and civil society interests of all community energy players in Bavaria. This includes around 250 Bavarian energy cooperatives as well as municipal utilities and other companies that operate decentralized and regenerative community energy projects. Citizen Energy Bavaria e. V. is the first association in Bavaria that advocates all renewable energies (solar energy, wind power, hydropower, geothermal energy, bioenergy).

In 2017, member companies of Bürgerenergie Bayern eV founded the cooperative auditing association Der Genossenschaftliche e. V.

On January 28, 2014, the federal German umbrella association of citizen energy initiatives was founded under the name Bündnis Bürgerenergie (BBEn) in Berlin. The aim of the non-profit association is, in particular, to disseminate technical knowledge among community energy players and to promote the scientific discussion of the social phenomenon of community energy.

After the creditors of the insolvent PROKON Regenerative Energien GmbH voted on July 2, 2015 for the conversion into a cooperative, the largest energy cooperative in Germany with 37,000 members was created with Prokon Regenerative Energien eG.

Citizen energy companies are also the subject of research. Among other things , the Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning is dedicated to the question of the extent to which such organizational units can contribute to the solution of local energy-political conflicts and the realization of public interest goals.

See also

literature

  • Jürgen Staab: Renewable energies in municipalities. Establish, manage and advise energy cooperatives. 3rd, revised edition, Springer-Gabler 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-07017-5 .
  • Carolin Schröder, Heike Walk (Ed.), Cooperatives and Climate Protection. Actors for sustainable cities based on solidarity , Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-03631-7 .
  • Eric Viardot: The role of cooperatives in overcoming the barriers to adoption of renewable energy . Energy Policy 63, (2013), 756-764, doi : 10.1016 / j.enpol.2013.08.034 .
  • Jakob R. Müller, Daniel Dorniok, Burghard Flieger, Lars Holstenkamp, ​​Franziska Mey, Jörg Radtke: Energy cooperatives - the successful model needs new dynamism . In: GAIA , 24/2, (2015), 96-101, doi : 10.14512 / gaia.24.2.7 .
  • Özgür Yildiz: Financing renewable energy infrastructures via financial citizen participation - The case of Germany. Renewable Energy 68 (2014) 677-685, doi : 10.1016 / j.renene.2014.02.038 .
  • Özgür Yildiz et al .: Renewable energy cooperatives as gatekeepers or facilitators? Recent developments in Germany and a multidisciplinary research agenda . Energy Research & Social Science 6, (2015), 59-73, doi : 10.1016 / j.erss.2014.12.001 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eric Viardot, The role of cooperatives in overcoming the barriers to adoption of renewable energy . Energy Policy 63, (2013), 756-764, p. 757 doi : 10.1016 / j.enpol.2013.08.034 .
  2. ↑ Gabriella Dóci, Eleftheria Vasileiadou, “Let's do it ourselves” Individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level . In: Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 49, (2015), 41–50, p. 42, doi : 10.1016 / j.rser.2015.04.051 .
  3. ↑ L'électricité plus verte que celle des voisins . In: Liberation , July 5, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2015.
  4. ↑ Rescoop.eu members ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 26, 2015.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / rescoop.eu
  5. ↑ Energy cooperatives: Renewable energy thanks to strong local roots. In: wsl.ch. Federal Research Institute for Forests, Snow and Landscape , November 27, 2018, accessed on February 6, 2019 .
  6. ^ Özgür Yildiz, Financing renewable energy infrastructures via financial citizen participation - The case of Germany. Renewable Energy 68 (2014) 677-685, p. 680. doi : 10.1016 / j.renene.2014.02.038 .
  7. ↑ On the status of energy cooperatives in Germany . Study by the Leuphana University of Lüneburg . Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  8. ↑ Maintaining diversity of actors , by Eckhard Ott ( DGRV ), Agency for Renewable Energies, undated
  9. ↑ Energy cooperatives. Membership continues to grow . In: Renewable Energies. Das Magazin , July 25, 2013. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
  10. ↑ Energy cooperatives - results of the survey by the DGRV and its member associations, spring 2013 (PDF; 553 kB)
  11. ↑ Agency for Renewable Energies e. V. and German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association: Energy cooperatives, 2011 (PDF; 5.2 MB)
  12. ↑ Press release Agency for Renewable Energies, July 19, 2012 ( Memento of the original from July 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.unendet-viel-energie.de
  13. ↑ Report to the Renewable Energy Agency, March 16, 2012 ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.unendet-viel-energie.de
  14. ↑ Graphics dossier: Energy cooperatives in Germany ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.unendet-viel-energie.de
  15. ↑ On the status of energy cooperatives in Germany - A statistical overview as of December 31, 2012 (PDF; 109 kB). In: Working Paper Series Economy & Law , April 1, 2013. Accessed July 31, 2013.
  16. ↑ Growth trend of the energy cooperatives unbroken. Retrieved August 18, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Economic development company of the district of Emmendingen mbH: Emmendingen Climate Protection - Citizens Energy Cooperatives (BEG). Retrieved August 18, 2017 .
  18. ↑ On the status of the energy cooperatives in Germany: Updated overview of figures and developments as of December 31 , 2014, Jakob R. Müller, Lars Holstenkamp, ​​January 29, 2015
  19. ↑ Annual survey of energy cooperatives 2014: Current energy policy leads to lower investment , DGRV, July 7, 2014
  20. ↑ BEE: DGRV annual survey of energy cooperatives shows: slump in start-up numbers , press release
  21. ↑ Start-ups at Energiegenossen in decline , Photovoltaics, July 7, 2016
  22. ↑ Citizens are excluded from the energy transition , Renewable Energies, July 7, 2016
  23. ↑ Astrid Wiecha: Bürgerenergiegesellschaft im EEG 2017 - a summary . In: WIRTSCHAFTSRAT law - energy law blog . February 24, 2017 ( wr-recht.de [accessed August 18, 2017]).
  24. ↑ Dr. Henrik Bremer: How do citizens' energy companies fare in tenders? In: WIRTSCHAFTSRAT law . May 24, 2017 ( wr-recht.de [accessed August 18, 2017]).
  25. ↑ Dr. Jürgen Weigt: Protection for the "true" citizen energy. Wind power tenders . In: newspaper for local economy . No. 8/2017 , August 7, 2017, ISSN  0946-2740 , p. 6 .
  26. ↑ Energy transition from below - The Strompiratin . In: spiegel-online.de. July 21, 2013, accessed December 15, 2018 .
  27. ↑ The Financial Times Deutschland reported on October 6, 2006: "Step on the gas, comrades!"
  28. ↑ The ORF brought on 20 December 2006 a detailed report on the television program World Journal
  29. ↑ Petra Sigge: David against Goliath . Cooperatives, part 2: Energy business in own hands / Bremen organization supplies gas and electricity. In: Weser courier . July 3, 2012, ZDB -ID 126012-1 , p. 21 .
  30. ↑ http://www.badische-zeitung.de/schoenau/ews-sind-jetzt-eine-genossenschaft--24035761.html
  31. ↑ http://www.badische-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-3/genossenschaft-energie-in-buergerhand-ist-am-ende--72739869.html
  32. ↑ Stadtwerk shares Energie Jena-Poessneck for a cooperative . In: Ostthüringer Zeitung , February 2, 2012. Accessed April 3, 2018.
  33. ↑ Network ownership company. City of Mörfelden-Waldorf, accessed on December 16, 2018 .
  34. ↑ BürgerEnergieRheinMain eG participates in the electricity and gas network in Mörfelden-Walldorf. Netzwerk Energiewende Jetzt eV, April 2017, accessed on December 15, 2018 .
  35. ^ BürgerEnergie Thüringen eV: Thuringian Landstrom. Retrieved May 17, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Ökostromanbieter-grünstromwerk-develops-regional tariff-with-der-rittersdorf-eg
  37. ↑ solarserver.de ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "Energy cooperative and green power plant bring Bavaria's first eco-regional electricity tariff to market, including 25% solar power"  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.solarserver.de
  38. ↑ Lorenz Storch: Comparison of providers - How do I get good green electricity? In: BR24 . Bayerischer Rundfunk, January 24, 2017, archived from the original on November 17, 2017 ; accessed on November 16, 2017 .
  39. ↑ Citizens' energy in Bavaria is networked. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 24, 2017 ; accessed on November 16, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.energiegenossenschaften-gruenden.de
  40. ^ The cooperative e. V. | Association examination with the plus. Retrieved November 16, 2017 .
  41. ↑ Citizens Energy Alliance
  42. ↑ Council for Sustainable Development: "The energy transition depends on villages and regions" - Interview with the historian Timothy Moss - Council for Sustainable Development. Retrieved August 18, 2017 .