Citizen energy groups in five EU countries, including Germany, are playing an important role in achieving the goal of carbon neutrality.
A law of the European Union is helping them in this. The civil energy movement is moving forward in the European Union. However, it is increasing only intermittently in southern and east-central Europe.
Till some time ago, there were very few clean energy groups in these areas. The biggest reason for this increase is an unprecedented law of the European Union in 2019. The law stipulates that clean energy communities must be able to operate in every member state by 2024.
Thousands of clean energy communities are already active in northern Europe. By the end of this year, every country of the European Union should adopt this law.
With the help of this law, groups of renewable energy workers will be able to start and operate their own energy parks.
Besides, they will also have the right to distribute and sell the energy generated. This will help in many ways in Europe’s campaign to become climate neutral by 2050.
This is the primary goal of the European Green Deal. People who produce their own electricity for their own use are called prosumers. The main objective of clean energy collective is to convert energy consumers into prosumers.
These communities are important for more than generating green electricity. The citizen energy movement was born in Germany and Denmark in the 1980s.
This campaign is related to democratizing energy. The energy sector has long been filled with rigid structures and opaque processes. Till many years ago, consumers used to use electricity and pay the bill for it.
No questions were asked. The dirty business of power generation and mineral extraction was carried out in areas far away from the population. Often this was done in other countries.
Companies used to earn huge profits and there too no questions were asked. Later, air pollution, the threat of nuclear energy and climate change inspired worried citizens to take action. Germany’s cooperative model Early energy activists in Germany relied on a 19th-century model of cooperatives.
He organized the citizens. Deposited money to buy solar farms, wind energy parks and even the entire electricity grid. In the 1990s, they acquired the right to sell their electricity to companies. In 2000, they also won the right to get fixed prices for their electricity.
This ensured that their invested money would be returned. The spread of cooperatives was an important first step in Germany’s clean energy transition. The result was that today more than half of Germany’s electricity is supplied through them. Small and large energy groups: Many types of energy groups exist in Europe today.
They now focus on zero-carbon solar and wind power as well as energy efficiency, storage, biomass, sustainable transportation and resilience. Some energy groups are small, with only a few members. But there are many very big ones too, like Germany’s EWS Schuinau and Belgium’s EcoPower.
These energy groups deliver renewable energy to thousands of homes. The Brussels-based NGO ReScoop.eu is a strong supporter of civic energy.
It is estimated that there are 2,250 energy cooperatives run by about 1.5 million people in Europe. Energy cooperatives are non-profit. These are made democratically at the grassroots level. Their members can take a part of the income and buy the electricity generated at a price lower than the market price. In many co-operative societies, each member has the right to only one vote, regardless of his stake in the society.
Much remains to be done in many countries ‘The EU legislation included in the Clean Energy for All Europeans package has taken civil energy in Europe to a different level. However, there is still much to be done for the development of clean energy clusters in some countries. This was revealed to five journalists from Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece and Poland.
They worked together for DW’s Multi-Country Clean Energy Community Series-2024. Selling clean electricity in Germany is difficult. The Rhine-Zeig Energy Cooperative, based in Zeigburg, western Germany, has about 350 members. They have their own 14 solar farms and an electronic car sharing venture.
Even though 900 such energy cooperatives exist in Germany, EU law states that the legal definition of energy cooperatives in Germany is not as comprehensive as it should be. The Rhine-Zeig Committee wants to share its energy.
The committee wants to make its clean electricity available to the members of other committees and local consumers at a reasonable price. Till now this has not been possible because for this the committee will have to deliver its electricity to the local grids at an affordable price.
In Germany, anyone who sells electricity through the grid is considered an electricity trader. It has to pay electricity tax and transmission fees to the grid operators. This makes clean energy from cooperatives more expensive for customers. This is according to Felix Schaefer, co-founder and co-chairman of the cooperative electricity trade association Bergwerk.
This association markets electricity generated by Germany’s renewable energy communities. In many countries, laws are not sufficient. Unlike Germany, democratic clean energy groups are still new in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Poland.
Pioneers such as the Georgiev brothers in Belozem, Bulgaria, and Roman Kacharmarchik, mayor of the city of Ladek-Zdroz in Poland, moved to establish their own groups, relying on existing laws. They struggled with authorities in their respective countries to bring progress in this field.
His contemporaries in Croatia and Greece did the same. All these energy activists hoped that the implementation of the EU law in their countries would bring about a big change. With this, their groups will also progress and others will also be inspired to do the same. But grid operators are not cooperating and the law is also not fully enabling the energy cooperatives to function.
Long road ahead, yet optimism In Croatia, for example, consumer NGOs complain that the country’s civil energy law contains too many unfair restrictions. Croatian authorities have limited the output of community energy parks to 500 kilowatts, which is less than the output of a thousand solar panels.
Apart from this, it is also necessary for the groups to be non-profitable and to deploy an expert. It is difficult for grassroots organizations to follow these rules. In Croatia, civil energy communities have to meet the needs of wind parks built at a cost of millions of euros.
Despite all these obstacles and setbacks, there is a lot of optimism about the pace of the campaign. In a survey conducted in Europe, 61 percent of participants said they would consider joining a local energy cooperative. Support was highest in those countries where it is just beginning.
Like – 85 percent in Romania, 75 percent in Italy, 75 percent in Bulgaria, 74 percent in Poland, 71 percent in Greece and 69 percent in Spain. Now the European Union also stands with civil energy activists..