Energy cooperatives in Germany – an example of successful alternative economies?

Abstract

Because of their democratic governance and value-driven approach cooperatives are often regarded as a prime example for alternative economies and contributing to (more) equitable economic development. Furthermore, they theoretically combine production and consumption and are often regionally-oriented. The recent boom of German renewable-energy cooperatives provides an interesting example of how cooperatives can also make an important contribution to sustainable development, here the German energy transition, and its social acceptance. The paper will first show how a specific regulatory environment supported this development and then analyse how German energy cooperatives cope with legal changes leading to less favourable institutional conditions. Based on a comprehensive survey, we examine whether they can, apart from their legal form, be regarded as alternative economies. Our analysis is guided by a set of criteria derived from Gibson-Graham's diverse-economies framework, including voluntary and paid work, (origin of) borrowed capital, size and structure of membership, business goals and strategies, especially after the legal changes, as well as regional orientation. We will show how different categories of German energy cooperatives differ with regard to their business models, alternative-economy characteristics and coping strategies. The future development of energy cooperatives in Germany will very likely be as diverse as their recent history, thus illustrating the diversity of alternative-economy organisations as stipulated by Gibson-Graham. Most of them, however, deal with the new regulatory environment pro-actively and are developing business models, which are independent from public support and might lead to new cooperative strategies at the shifting interfaces between state, market and civil society.

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

“…Literature on multi-level climate and energy governance stresses the interplay between different levels of governance and specifically the important role of local governments [49][50][51]. Hence, several authors see municipalities (local governments) as important actors for local energy producers [24,52] such as energy cooperatives, whose activities and members are usually locally embedded [53,54]. Municipalities may function as network actors [23] and operate as collaboration partners or shareholders [21,22] and as investors or buyers of the produced energy [24,25].…”

“…More recently, the formation of new energy cooperatives has been curbed: by the changes regarding the support of PV (EEG 2012), by temporary uncertainties regarding capital investment regulations [21,82], and, more recently, by the phasing-out of feed-in tariffs (EEG 2014 and EEG 2016/2017). Despite these changes, electricity generation based on FITs was and still is a widespread business model of energy cooperatives, with a strong focus on PV and, to a much lesser extent, on wind [54].…”

Statistical Evidence on the Role of Energy Cooperatives for the Energy Transition in European Countries

“…The Renewable Energy Resources Act, which was enacted in the year 2000, has been the key policy, granting fixed feed-in tariffs and priority feed-in for electricity that originates from renewables. This enabled other support mechanisms such as loans and grants at better conditions, leading to the notable growth of energy cooperatives and other forms of citizen-led energy initiatives [7,11,[56][57][58]. All of these initiatives contributed 47% of renewable energy capacities installed by 2012; the share of energy cooperatives was 9% [59].…”

“…Although the data underscores the importance of energy cooperatives for Germany's energy transition, the number of newly founded energy cooperatives has declined recently. Klagge and Meister [58] refer to it as the "end of the boom". Our data also confirms this decline in newly founded cooperatives (see the blue markers in Figure 8).…”

Working the fields: The organization of labour in community supported agriculture

“…Alternative organizations like co-operatives can lose sight of social values, particularly in times of recession and economic crisis when market forces exert a strong influence (Cheney et al, 2014). This underlines the need to address structural conditions in the economy and recognize that the policy and regulatory environment is also key to alternatives being able to produce the (use) values they seek to and flourish (Klagge & Meister, 2018;Schermer, 2014;p. 125).…”