Danish Wind Turbines. Photographer: www.CGPGrey.com Source: www. CGPGrey.com Usage rights: CC BY 2.0
Wind Energy Cooperative Enables Citizens to Produce Their Own Clean Energy Copenhagen, Denmark By Wolfgang Hoeschele
PROBLEM The establishment of a carbon-neutral energy system requires massive investments in infrastructure, such as wind turbines. Because distributed energy systems do not fit the business models of the old energy utilities, they continue to invest far too little in this sector. Meanwhile, many individual electric power consumers are interested in investing in renewable power infrastructure, but these investments are too large and require a level of expertise too advanced for individual households to be able to support them. How can consumers take matters into their own hands?
SOLUTION Wind cooperatives allow multiple households to pool their funds to collectively build one or more wind turbines. As co-owners, they make investment decisions and negotiate the terms with operators of larger electric networks. An urban example of this is the Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative, formed in 1997, which partnered with the Copenhagen municipal utility to build 20 wind turbines of 2MW capacity each, off the shore of Copenhagen. Københavns Energi, the municipal
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