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Event
Rural Clean Energy Tour
Transatlantic dialogue on how to structure a renewable energy transition from the bottom up
Ten US clean energy advocates travel to Germany to witness the progressive role of the energy cooperative in pushing the energy transition
During the week of September 24, 2012, ten US policy advocates for local clean energy visited Germany to study the country’s energy transition into a nuclear free era based almost entirely on clean energy. The Tour began with political meetings in Berlin where the group met with the Ministry for Environment and the Ministry for Economics (both in charge of organizing Germany’s energy policy) as well as with the German Cooperative and Raiffaisen Federation (DGRV) and members for the German parliament. The Tour then continued on to the city of Kassel for the 4th 100% Renewable Energy Conference, before going to the region of Rhoengrabfeld and Grafenwoehr in Bavaria where participants witnessed how rural communities cooperatively invest in renewable energy sources. The Tour ended with meetings about renewable financing structures in Frankfurt and at the Energy Landscape Morbach.
Germany has set itself ambitious long-term energy goals until 2050. The country’s Energy Concept lays the groundwork for how the country is to gain up to 95% of its electricity from renewable energies by the middle of this century. Much of Germany’s energy transition is driven by developments on the rural and local levels. The big utilities play only a marginal role in this development representing around 7% of total investments in renewables.
Investing in renewable energies such as wind and solar is no longer just a Green issue but has entered the realm of the political mainstream in Germany. As Joseph Goeppel (member of the German parliament and of the conservative party CSU) pointed out “renewables are not just a technological development but constitute a strong social movement as well.”
How did Germany do it? The lessons from the country’s experience are manifold: There is literally a small-town revolution underway where towns, villages and rural areas are striving to become more self-sufficient renewable energy communities. Key drivers for this trend have been a liberalized, decentralized energy market and a feed-in tariff that have enabled ordinary people to become producers of their own energy. Any excess of domestically produced energy has priority access to the electricity grid and the producer receives a fixed tariff for every kwh for a period of twenty years.
Farmers and rural communities play a particularly prominent role in pushing the clean energy development in Germany. Over the last decade, more than 30% of farmers have become investors in renewable energies. Often these are formed in local cooperative structures allowing for a democratic decision-making process where all stakeholders are equal. Energy cooperatives do not only help to push acceptance levels for renewables among the local population but create local energy supply structures that are affordable and safe.
Between 2006 and 2012 the energy cooperative has taken on the key role in pushing for a renewable energy transition in Germany. Today, 85,000 people have cooperatively invested more than 8 million Euros (US$ 10.5 million) over the past three years alone. The German Cooperative Societies Act has allowed cooperative structures to develop into a sound business model that does not result in any insolvencies. 91% of energy cooperative members are private citizens, 9 % are municipalities, towns and villages. In Grafenwoehr, the Tour participants learned how a cooperative structure can also combine the involvement of private citizens as well as municipalities. Here, the energy cooperative does not only invest in renewable energy sources but is also looking into buying back the grid from the big utilities.
