Before introducing those peculiarities, first some background: If people could own their energy, they’d be more secure – both financially and infrastructurally. We could save money and increase our ability to bounce back after natural disasters by producing clean, decentralized energy in our own communities. If ordinary people could put their money toward renewables, instead of investing in fossil fuels on Wall Street, we’d also speed up our response to climate change.

But as we began working toward this vision for community-owned renewable energy, strange things started turning up. We found that you can’t share power with your neighbors even if your roof could produce enough solar power for the both of you. And it’s legally very difficult to pool resources to build and access energy from a neighborhood solar project. Ultimately, most people aren’t able to access local solar energy because they are renters, have poor credit scores, or don’t have enough sun exposure on their roof for solar panels.

Stranger yet, there is a lot of money incentivizing solar for some people, but not as much for low to moderate-income households. Solar tax credits are available for homeowners and wealthy investors, but what about everyone else?

We’ve been working to address those strange things. For example, thanks in part to our advocacy, it’s now at least possible to develop shared solar energy projects with your neighbors. Unfortunately, because of opposition from entrenched interests, it’ll cost a premium for most people to take advantage of that policy. But while there are barriers to sharing energy, we believe we have found a path forward with a new legal model: the Permanent Community Energy Cooperative.

This model allows everyone to join a cooperative that strives for permanent access to and control of renewable energy for all of its members. We recently were awarded a grant from the California Energy Commission through the CalSEED program to further develop this model. Exciting! It may be just strange enough to work! If you’d like to learn about some our stranger thoughts behind it, check out this cartoon.

Let us know if you want to learn more and stay informed on community energy updates — such as jobs or volunteer opportunities, social events, and hopefully one day, memberships in an energy cooperative.

We haven’t been spooked by the strange things we’ve run into — we’re energized by the emerging opportunities and hope you are too!

Photo by National Renewable Energy Lab

The post A Permanent Community Energy Cooperative model to fight climate change and wealth inequality appeared first on P2P Foundation.

BARRIO SOLAR was created on September 21st, the day after Hurricane Maria devastated the island nation of Puerto Rico.

Our team at BARRIO SOLAR has developed a simple and cost-effective way to ship a variety of solar devices to the island, where they will be distributed to shelters, community centers and homes – especially the small towns in the center and south of the island – where immediate aid and reconstructed power sources are least likely to be deployed.

The solar devices to be shipped to Puerto Rico will be collected and distributed by a network of 35 women’s shelters and aid organizations under the leadership of Paz para la Mujer. By partnering with these women’s networks, we will be avoiding the risk of black market profiteering and, as we are at this moment a fully volunteer network, the entire distribution effort will be done for free.

Our goal is to raise $25,000 within the next few weeks, and to have the products on the ground in Puerto Rico by the first week of December.

We have purposely limited this fundraiser to $25,000, because it will be the first run of our new distribution network, and we want to ensure that our partners at Paz para la Mujer are able to accommodate this volume of solar devices.

We have teamed up with CENSA, the Center for the Studies of the Americas in Berkeley, CA, as our fiscal sponsor. They will ensure that the funds we raise go directly to purchase the solar kits and lights noted above.

With your help, we can provide immediate relief to thousands of people in Puerto Rico, who currently have no power or fresh water.

Once our goal of $25,000 is met, we will buy the products and have them immediately shipped directly to Puerto Rico within the first week of December.

People have asked us: why bother with this initiative when so many other larger organizations are taking solar power to Puerto Rico?
Our response? We at BARRIO SOLAR are proud to be among the many organizations that are bringing fossil fuel independence to the island of Puerto Rico via solar technologies, and we are excited to be part of these self-organizing solar support networks.

Please be generous in your support for the people of Puerto Rico.

Gracias! Thank You!

Fritjof Capra, Indira Cortes and Elizabeth Hawk for BARRIO SOLAR

Click here to contribute to the campaign

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The crowd funding campaign for the startup of platform cooperative Incubator.coop has now been launched – you can learn more and support it here.

There’s problems with traditional incubators that no-one in “startup land” wants to admit. The problem is simple: incubators serve investors, not incubatee’s. That’s why we created incubator.coop – it addresses a real-world economic failure. Incubators can’t find enough fee’s from a target market that by definition is cash and resource poor. So incubators serve their investors as a deal-flow mechanism. They do not serve startups. In Australia, Pollenizer, the first startup incubator shuttered after just 9-years of business and after several pivots. The rest will follow if they don’t serve up good deal flow.

The quest for a better incubator leads to a better form of business

The future – according to those that hang out in the Co-Op sector – belongs to collective endeavours. It belongs to Platform CoOps not Venture-Backed 2-sided marketplaces.

The future is not a new AGL powered by wind and solar. The future belongs to hundreds if not thousands of community-level energy co-ops.

Introducing incubator.coop at the New Economy Conference

Short-fallings of Conventional Incubators

1. Conventional Incubators are not viable in themselves. Instead they act as a business development tool for “side-car” investors trying to pick winners. We think you need an incubator that exists to serve its incubatees.
2. Conventional Incubators look for a 1-in-1000 unicorn to repay their many wrong bets. We think you need an incubator that creates businesses of value that go the distance.
3. Conventional Incubators looks for exceptional talent. We think you need an incubator for collective endeavours.
4. Conventional Incubators function with a top-down approach. We think you need an incubator that harnesses the wisdom of the crowd.
5. Conventional Incubators promote returns for the 1%. We think you need an incubator where 1 Member = 1 Vote.
6. Conventional Incubators run for 6-months. We think you need an incubator that supports the whole period of development from formation through to operation.

Crowd Is Key

In the future, every business will continue to live and die by its service to the group of stakeholders a company may refer to as ‘shareholders, customers, employees and community’. But, in the future we’ll call these stakeholders the “crowd”.

The strength of the “crowd” will determine success more than historically as transparency, block-chain and social-media mean traditional market barriers become obsolete.

Crowdsource Instead of Top-Down

A crowd needs a place to develop ideas of mutual interest. This harnesses the wisdom of the crowd.

Given a bit of guidance and time crowd-sweat can bring ideas to the stage of maturity, where a crowd-fund campaign can test “product-market fit” whilst qualifying future customers and investors.

The best ideas will attract a crowd and develop. The ones without a crowd won’t develop. This is somewhat Darwinian on purpose. We think it’s better to put startup ideas through a ‘natural selection’ process than a ‘VC selection’ process.

Crowdfunding

We believe crowdfunding is an essential role in new venture development. So we are running our own through this soft launch phase until November 1, 2017.

Photo by Thad Zajdowicz

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Image: Advertisement for the municipal electricity utility in Hamburg (round 1900)

In Germany, there is a strong movement to claim the gas, electricity and heating networks back from private corporations. Initiated by civil organisations, they are pushing the political arena to take action towards a remunicipalisation of the energy system. After setting the theoretical background (in part 1), we will look into two cases: Hamburg and Berlin. These examples provide crucial insights into the interplay between civil initiatives and the political arena and allow to draw important conclusions. 

A municipal utility in Hamburg: good try, no cigar

As we saw in the first part, the referendum in Hamburg pushed the municipality to buy the electricity, gas and heating networks back from Vattenfall. Therefore, things seem to be on the right tracks there. However, a more careful observation shows that the model is missing a crucial part: the democratic governance.

In order to understand where the step was missed, we have to go back in time. During the phase preceding the referendum, several local actors created an energy cooperative, which aim was to apply to the concession for operating the electricity grid. It’s name is Energienetz Hamburg. They made a deal with a Dutch TSO, Alliander, which pulled out at the last moment.

Unfortunately, although Energienetz succeeded to attract a large number of members who commited to a common capital of 50 million euros, the municipality did not include them in the deal for the concession.

This is a missed opportunity, which could have seen a new type of civil-public partnership and the implementation in a state-run company of the cooperative decision-making model: one member (one user) = one vote.

On the brighter side, this energy coop. is now playing an important role in Hamburg, by organizing debates (called Wärmedialogue) to promote and push the municipality to investigate alternative sources of district heating. One solution for instance would be to recuperate the heat from a copper furnace on the South East side of the city instead of using fossil-fuel power plants. As mentioned in this video (to watch absolutely if you have 12 minutes to spare!), district heating is crucial because this represent a large number of homes (>450 000), which generally do not have other choices (e.g., renters who de facto have district heating). Therefore, prices and heating sources become central issues.

In Hamburg, an advisory board was created and adjunct to the Energy Agency of the city. As explained in this article: “Members of this new Board include a broad range of 20 representatives from society, science, business, industry and most importantly all local grid companies, also including Vattenfall and E.ON, which still remain main shareholders of the district heating and gas distribution grid until the purchase options has been exercised.” However, the board exert a mere advisory function and has limited decision-making power. As the article states, this is one of the main challenge that Hamburg faces: “avoid [that] the board becom[es] a toothless tiger”.

Twists and turns in Berlin

In Berlin, the story started in a similar fashion as in Hamburg but developed very differently. A dynamic campaign to remunicipalise the networks was launched in 2013, orchestrated by the civic initiative Berliner Energietisch. The referendum attracted more than 600 000 people but unfortunately, failed short of 20 000 “Ja” votes.

The actors are pretty much the same as in Hamburg:

• private utilities (e.g., Stromnetz Berlin, belonging to Vattenfall) are running the show at the moment,
• a municipal energy provider, Berliner Stadtwerke, daughter of the water utility and a minicipal grid operator Berlin Energie were created as a result of the campaign in order to apply for the concession to operate the grids. Berlin Energie is investigating interesting concepts, like the combined networks (link in German).
• an energy cooperative, Bürgerenergie Berlin, alive and kicking, aims at buying back and operating the grids.

Interestingly, everyone though that the game was over after the failed referendum but this was forgetting the importance of the political game. Indeed, the municipal vote in 2016 saw the formation of a new “Red-Red-Green” (SPD-Die Linke-Die Grüne) coalition in Berlin, which put back the remunicipalisation process on the agenda.

And here are the different options that are being evaluated presently by the municipality. We find applicants like in Hamburg: In white, the fully municipal operators (Berlin Energie) and in grey, the fully privatised actors (NBB Netzgesellschaft and Stromnetz Berlin). But we also find more funky applications: in white-grey hashed, either classical public-private partnership for the gas networks or more a complex civil-public-private partnership for the electricity grid. A new field of possible has been open. We are all very curious what will happen now!

This is interesting as it points out the joint role of the civil society and of the political arena in creating new spaces. It starts by a strong civic movement and is enabled by a favorable political landscape.

To finish, here a second little video that we did with TNI at the occasion of the conference “Against the NAM”. I had to answer the question “Why should we treat energy as a commons?”.

The post Remunicipalisation of energy systems – Part 2 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Image: Advertisement for the municipal electricity utility in Hamburg (round 1900)

In Germany, there is a strong movement to claim the gas, electricity and heating networks back from private corporations. Initiated by civil organisations, they are pushing the political arena to take action towards a remunicipalisation of the energy system. This is a very interesting process, which allows to explore key concepts such as the right to energy and democratic governance as well as the interplay between politics and the civil society.

I presented this story during a conference on about the potential remunicipalisation of the Groningen gas field at the beginning of January (see previous article). You will find here all the slides from the presentation, which you can download and reuse (but please, cite me!). All sources are indicated at the end of the post.

Energy is a commons

Firstly, I will quickly lay some theoretical foundations to the relationships between energy and the commons. The following slide is an illustration of the differences between energy used as a commodity or a common good.

• Energy is a commodity: it is produced to make profit (even green): we are clients/consumers and our decision power is to chose between different companies. The incentive in this case is to produce as much energy as possible (or raise the prices) to increase the profits. The prices are set either by the producer (the owner of the power plant) or by the market.
• Energy is a commons: it is produced to respond to a need and we are producers and consumers at the same time, this is called “prosumers”. We can decide together with our neighbours on the system we want to have. The incentive is to produce what is needed and save it. Being a commons does not mean that energy becomes free of charge but that the prices can be adapted to our needs (we control it and use it to foster social and climatic justice). Think of water, which is also a common good: it still has a cost for the consumer. But you don’t make profit out of it because it is considered as a human right. We should look at energy in that way.

Cooperatives and municipal utilities to foster energy democracy

When we think energy democracy, one thing that comes to mind are cooperatives. There are many throughout Europe, which can have very different financial structures and sizes. But they have one thing in common, which makes them very particular: their ownership and governance modes.

The infrastructure is owned by the members, who each have a vote. Decisions are taken on the model “one member, one vote”.

The other form of organisation that holds great potential for energy democracy are municipal utilities. They are known in Europe for the water utilities and used to play a large role for energy as well. But the wave of privatisations in the 1990s put them in the hands of private corporations. Since a few years, some cities are taking a reverse path and buy their networks and utilities back. This is very interesting because municipal utilities, which inherently belong to all, have potentially one crucial advantage over cooperatives: as all inhabitants/users can be considered as members, they might prove more inclusive structures. However, this is only true if the governance mode is copied on the coop one: “one member one vote”. We will see that it is not necessarily the case.

Hamburg in the driver seat

First, here are a few basics on the structure of the energy system in Germany:

• On the one hand, there are the grid operators (TSO): they own and operate the local electricity, gas and heating networks. They get concessions of 20 years, given by the federal states: these are quasi-monopolies. They compete to get the concession but once the get it, they have no competitors.

• On the other hand, there are the energy providers, who operate the power plants and commercialise energy (they are the users of the grid). Here it can be anyone producing energy, from the very big to the very small.

In Hamburg, the concession for the networks was hold by Vattenfall and ran out in 2013. People then decided to regain control on the grid. So the city of Hamburg grounded a municipal utility (called “Hamburg Energie”), as a daughter of the water utility. It is now an energy provider, which focuses on producing and selling local green energy (mostly electricity but also some gas).

Next to that, a collective of citizens founded the initiative “Unser Hamburg Unser Netz”. They ran a campaign and had a referendum, during which people voted in favour of a full remunicipalisation of the networks. Therefore, the electricity network was bought back in 2014 and the gas and heating networks should get back in the public hand by 2018/2019.

So things seem to be on a right track in Hamburg, and it was indeed experienced as a tremendous victory for the supporters of energy democracy. But… something is missing in the Hamburg model: the citizen participation, based on the cooperative model. Indeed, both the municipal energy utility and municipal TSO are run as companies and users are not taking an active part in decision-making (they are merely consulted).

That’s it for now. Next time, we’ll have a look at energy cooperatives in Hamburg and at the story in Berlin. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, you can watch the whole presentation, that was recorded by TNI (whom I thank very much!).

Photo by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – PNNL

The post Remunicipalisation of energy systems – Part 1 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Community energy refers to any kind of power plant using a renewable source of energy, that has been planned, financed and which is owned by a community of people (from the village to the house). And why would these energy communities matter? It is nice enough but sounds pretty irrelevant when we think about fighting climate change or fostering democracy… However, several recent studies highlight the crucial role of energy democracy in meeting these societal challenges.

Hereafter, I will distinguish energy communities (as defined earlier) from external projects, which involve private or institutional investors and a project developer who do not belong to the community where the power-plant is installed. If informed and sometimes a minor share-holder, the community generally does not take part in the design and the decision-making.

Some benefits of community energy can (and sometimes have been) quantified:

• Reinvestment in local economy. A much larger part of the initial investment and profits derived from energy communities flows back to the local economy as compared to external projects (up to eight times larger, see article & original study -in German).
• Lower electricity prices are to be expected as energy communities expect lower return-rates than external projects. This is crucial to help fighting energy poverty.

Out of a visit I made in the energy self-sufficient village Feldheim (I’ll relate that in a future episode!), I also got these two indications (which to my knowledge have not been quantified yet):

• Stable real-estate value. Due to the positive image of energy communities compared to villages where a renewable power-plant was installed by external actors, the value of the real-estate is largely sustained or improved.
• There is creation of local and resilient jobs and reinvigoration of rural regions. Feldheim is a typical example of how such a project helps to fight structural unemployment and to attract new inhabitants (e.g., the school has reopen its doors after being closed for decades).

Other benefits are more difficult to quantify but are nonetheless tangible. A series of interviews from local stake-holders involved in community energy projects reported the following (see article & study in German):

• It increases the connectivity between the community members (“making friends”, “doing together”).
• Involvement. The possibility to participate in the decision-making at all levels provides a strong incentive to be involved in the community and thereby fosters democracy.
• Interestingly, it raises the level of self-worth for local actors, who are able to acquire new skills, and/or achieve challenges (for instance get involved and better understand local politics).

Finally, there is a range of strategical benefits:

• Power generation in public hands. Power plants being by nature highly strategic infrastructure, it seems rather reassuring that they remain in the public hands rather than under private control.
• Stabilize grid and fight black-outs. It might seem counter-intuitive, but a research project from the German Fraunhofer Institute shows that the decentralized production of energy might help to stabilize the grid. As shown by this video (in German), small decentralized production units are actually a better solution against black-outs than big centralised power-plants.
• Favouring the installation of the “appropriate technology*” coupled to the implementation of energy-saving or energy-efficient measures. The interest of an energy community lies more into finding an adequate, robust and resilient solution to produce clean energy rather than maximising profits.
• Fuel the energy transition. Community energy projects raise the awareness and acceptance towards the energy transition, and therefore help to fight climate change and environmental damages.

Glossary
*Renewable energy: energy produced from sources that will be renewed/replenished in a short amount of time. Typically, even if you use the wind, the sun-rays, the tides, the waves, the flow of a river, and in some cases biomass to make energy (warmth or electricity) today, that has no impact on their amount tomorrow. That does not mean that they are infinite (there is a finite amount of wind), but it means that their quantity won’t be depleted permanently if you use them. It is therefore clear that oil, coal and uranium (to make nuclear power) are finite and not renewable (or at least not on short time-scales): if you use them today, there will be less tomorrow.
*Appropriate technology: it describes the technology best adapted to the local conditions and needs of the community members. It is used in opposition to the race for “high technology” (or high-tech), which, although being technologically sound, is not always the best suited solution. High-tech also does not necessarily feeds the interests of the community, of the “common good” but rather that of external investors.

Originally published on Energy Commons

Lead image: Hepburn Wind, Flickr

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