Community Energy in Germany: From Technology Pioneers to Professionalisation under Uncertainty

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Authors

Germany probably has one of the largest community energy sectors in Europe and worldwide. The national government has not (yet) used the Clean Energy Package as a window of opportunity, as in other countries with less strong community energy heritage, to foster or revitalise Germany’s stagnating community energy sector—despite or because of being a community energy front-runner. The author emphasises institutional fit, path dependence, and existing actors and motivations to explain such a “law of the disadvantageous lead”. On the other hand, he highlights questions of timing, sub-national and multilevel policy dynamics and the dominating narrative as explanations for this finding. Overall, changes in energy policy leave German community energy companies in a struggle to find new business models and to professionalise.
Translated title of the contributionBürgerenergie in Deutschland: Von Technologiepionieren zur Professionalisierung unter Unsicherheit
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRenewable Energy Communities and the Low Carbon Energy Transition in Europe
EditorsFrans H.J.M. Coenen, Thomas Hoppe
Number of pages34
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Publication date2021
Pages119-152
ISBN (print)978-3-030-84439-4
ISBN (electronic)978-3-030-84440-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.