Transitioning to community-owned renewable energy: Lessons from Germany

Providing mature technologies and in-servicing markets are not enough to foster the public use of renewable energy technologies for green transformation. A promising approach is to help policy makers construct a model for identifying and developing factors that will support community-owned technology initiatives. The literature on incentives for multi-actors to get involved in community-owned renewable energy project reveals that major success factors are of socio-economic character. The theory-collective action approach consists of five integrated dimensions of actors that enable an understanding of the role of, and linkages between, the stakeholders in a community. In this study we examine success factors in the implementation of community-owned renewable energy projects and look for theoretical explanations as to why they are important. We used the case study of Freiamt (a rural community in the Black Forest, Germany), which has already achieved 100% power production from renewable sources, to analyze stakeholders and their motivations for becoming active and investing in renewable energy. The case study shows that participative and bottom-up planning processes are very important for the implementation of the project and that economic and regional motives amongst the relevant stakeholders were dominant. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.