Midwest Clean Energy Tour

Energy for the Village by the Village

Energy and climate policy experts globally agree that much of the push towards a clean energy transition has to come through a bottom-up approach from the local level. In Germany, such a rural and small-town revolution is currently underway where many different groups of society come together to form so-called rural energy cooperatives. The goal of these communities is clear: they strive with pride to become so-called 100% self-sustainable renewable energy communities. In the past five years alone, more than 500 new renewable energy cooperatives have sprung out of the ground. They are replacing fossil fuel imports with renewable biomass, wind and solar power and buying back the local transmission lines.

To highlight some of these local successes, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) organized a public speaking tour which brought two leading cooperative experts from Germany to the Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin from June 11 to 16, 2012.

Dr. Andreas Wieg from the German Cooperative and Raiffaisen Confederation (DGRV) and Michael Diestel from the Bavarian Farmers Union and Manager at a local cooperative Agrokraft shared practical insights on how the cooperative model has created economic growth and has brought wealth to rural citizens who decide to jointly invest in local renewable energy projects. In public and bilateral meetings, the speakers spoke at Annual Meeting of the Association of Rural Electric Generating Cooperatives in Minneapolis, the Mid-American Regulatory Conference in Des Moines, and the Energy Fair in Custer, WI.

“The key to its success lies in the structure of the cooperative – as we know that the technology of renewable energies is widely available”, says Michael Diestel. The onion skin structure of the cooperative allows it to be democratic in the sense that every owner has one vote no matter how many shares he owns in the cooperative – every local stakeholder feels included in a common project. With investing as little as €100 (USD130) people can buy a stake in a cooperative. Because cooperative owners take ownership in their communal renewable energy projects acceptance levels for this energy source is increasing as a consequence.

This local and rural revolution finds its origin in the fact that there is a decentralized energy system in place in Germany as well as a feed-in tariff which not only allows priority access to the grid system but also offers a tariff for each kWh that is fed into the public grid and which is fixed for a twenty year period. Through this particular policy instrument, renewable energies are not only becoming a real alternative to fossil fuels but have also evolved into favorable investment area – triggering up to 5-8% return on investments every year.

The increase in local renewable energy cooperatives has other important benefits to the local economy as well: they create well-paying jobs, generate tax revenue and strengthen community engagement around a common cause. The energy cooperative thus is a driving force for rural development in Germany and helps rural communities to stay alive in times of urbanization – it is a village plan rather than a national energy plan. The Midwest has – like Germany – a strong cooperative tradition. Here, renewable energies could be tied to existing cooperative models that help create a greater basis for support for these technologies by bringing together individual farmers, rural electric and farmer cooperatives, municipal utilities, equipment manufacturers, local businesses and individual citizens.

For further information please check out the following sources:

Presentation by Michael Diestel

Presentation by Andreas Wieg

A Rural Energy Revolution in Germany (Midwest Energy News – 6/14/2012) – Dan Haugen

UWP Hosts German Renewable Energy Experts (SWNews4u.com – 7/3/2012) – Dan Wackershauser

Revitalizing Rural Communities through the Renewable Energy Cooperative (German Energy Transition – Part 3) – Amanda Bilek

Energy Cooperatives – Citizens, Communities and the Local Economy in Good Company (Publication by the German Cooperative and Raiffaisen Confederation - DGRV)