Energy cooperations

How cooperatives charge the energy transition

In the Paris Agreement of 2015, we agreed upon striving towards a maximum global warming of 1,5 to 2 degrees. Still, we are heading for 3,2 degrees, so it appeared last year in a IPCC-report. This results in acidifying oceans and extreme weather conditions.⁽¹⁾ The energy transition is necessary to redirect this crash course. We have to move to renewable energy and become more economical in our energy use. In Europe, the energy sector is now responsible for seventy-five per cent of all emissions of greenhouse-gases. If such a polluting sector makes the shift towards renewable energy, that rapidly becomes cheaper and more efficient, it will have a great impact.⁽²⁾
If we leave it to the government or commercial energy providers, the transition happens to slowly. Fortunately, in The Netherlands as well as elsewhere more and more citizens undertake action themselves, generate and distribute their own energy. For that purpose they use the legal form of the cooperative.

An energy cooperation, how does that work exactly?
A cooperation is a legal entity, governed by a group of members. The goal is not raise the most profit possible for each individual, but to pursue the interest of the collective. The statutory equivalence makes the legal cooperation, more than a bv or nv for example, suited for citizen initiatives that collectively want to invest in local sustainable energy, for example solar panels, a wind turbine or a heat grid.

Frank Boon, founder of the Amsterdam energy cooperation ‘Zuiderlicht’ and project manager of the wind energy project ‘Amsterdam Wind’, tells in an interview with Amsterdam Alternative that cooperations are flourishing, thanks to the idea of collective property. Purchasing one solar panel  alone is doable, but for bigger projects you’ll need more investors. According to Frank, cooperations emerge often ‘’because there is a need for something which is not happening, leading people and organisations to take matters in their own hands’’. In this way, many cooperations have been founded from discontent with the privatized and commercialized energy suppliers. With these parties, the energy source remains an obscurity. As a consequence of shady trades in certifications, green energy often wears its green label just because a supplier bought a green certificate from Scandinavia. Profit triumphs over the interests of people and nature. In a cooperation, it is not the anonymous profit-driven stockholders pulling the strings, but people with a real share in the product: employees, customers and suppliers. Zuiderlicht has a) members investing in the cooperations through a loan, b) members purchasing energy as well, and c) members who are primarily joining to support the initiative. Officially, Zuiderlicht is not an energy supplier, so the purchase of power goes through GreenChoice. It is a problem lots of cooperations are facing: the difficulty to both produce and purchase energy. Production and offtake are separated by regulations to prevent unfair competition and misuse of power. Next to that, storing energy, which cooperations should be able to do in order to function properly as energy supplier, is technically challenging.
Discontent with the system was an important driver for the energy cooperation ‘Amsterdam Energie’ as well. Founder Rolf Steenwinkel shares with AA that it started out as a protest club -including a manifest- pleading to utilize more rooftops in Amsterdam for solar energy. Amsterdam Energie boldly took the initiative covering up the roof of metrostation Reigersbos with solar panels, after which the municipality followed suit at other stations.

In the interviews with AA, Frank and Rolf are enthusiastic about the combination between solar- and wind energy. One cannot provide the whole of Amsterdam with solar energy, not even after covering all the rooftops with panels. Filling the city with windmills is not an option either, but complementing wind- and solar energy does a significant part of the job. The storage of energy is a challenge in this case. Currently, all the energy generated by solar panels on sunny days goes to the central electricity grid. It would be more efficient if the cooperations could store the abundant energy ‘at home’’, for the more overcast days. According to Rold, we are only at the beginning of this crucial development. It is already possible to charge an electric car parked in front of the door in the daytime, while the power stored in the battery of the car provides the house with energy in the evening. This is yet the reality for owners of pricy electric cars only, but the example shows what battery-technology can mean for energy cooperations in the future.

Together we are strong
Often, energy cooperations are working together. An example is the bv Amsterdam Wind, founded by four Amsterdam cooperations, among which is Amsterdam Energy. This bv cooperates intensively with the entrepreneurial cooperations NDSM Energie. Collectively, they realise windmill parks in Amsterdam North. A complicated puzzle, as placing these edifices in a jampacked city is a matter of measuring and weighing. Why a bv? Although energy cooperations differ from the hierarchical structure of a regular partnership, they sometimes establish a bv, as it is more easily financeable and builds in a buffer for economic setbacks (a bv bankruptcy will not bring down the cooperation). The members of the cooperations -the ones investing in the energy generation, purchasing the energy, or paying contribution to think along- determine the do’s and do not’s of the bv.  Every cooperation within Amsterdam Wind brings in a representative for the bv. This board works according to a mandate set by the members, which means that a decision falling outside of the mandate will have to be presented to the members of the cooperations. A transparent and democratic process.

The Zeeland park ‘Windpark Krammer’ is another joining of forces, here including two cooperations working together with the German windmill builder Enercon. These windmills are built on the Krammersluizen, a part of the Deltawerken. Manager Tijmen Keesmat spoke of ‘’not a small challenge’’ to build 180 meters high turbines on a primary flood defense – a deltawork on a deltawork –⁽³⁾ but it became a success. Within 25 years, Windpark Krammer grew the largest cooperative citizeninitiative of The Netherlands, with as many as four thousand members and 34 wind turbines.

Operating as a small local cooperation it is also an option to join the overarching organisation ‘Om Nieuwe Energie’ (previously: ‘Samen Om’), as Amsterdam Energy has done. ‘Om’ couples local electricity producers to local users, as many as possible. Tens of energy cooperations throughout The Netherlands have joined the organisation and provide power for hundreds of thousands of households. Joining Om, you can lift on the existing infrastructure, the range and the experience of the collective. An economic benefit for the customers is that the growth of Om barely has a spin off of extra expenses. Most of these costs are generation installations and the associated staff. This way, Om can offer power increasingly cheaper as long as she keeps growing.

An important advantage for members of energy cooperations is to have control over their own energy supply. Within a system of energy cooperations, the dependence on commercial energy providers is reduced.

Away with the old system
In many ways, energy cooperations make for improvements compared to the old system. An important advantage for members of energy cooperations is to have control over their own energy supply. Within a system of energy cooperations, the dependence on commercial energy providers is reduced. Being a customer of Om Nieuwe Energie, you can trace the source of your energy precisely. No grey power! The nice thing is that locally generated sustainable energy does not equal expensive energy. Cooperations can supply energy against competitive prices. Amsterdam Energie, for example, can handle low margins, because the cooperation does not lose financial resources on marketing or dividends. 

Another advantage is that cooperations strike up a longtime, sustainable relationship with the environment in which they are active. This eliminates friction. In consultation with the local residents, a cooperation can place a windturbine in such a manner that it will cause the least disturbance. Bylaws may specify that the windturbines can never be sold to a commercial party.

The final benefit of the new system is the given that a cooperation can determine for itself what happens with the profits. There are project cooperations without growing ambitions – founded to realise one particular project – paying out the complete profit to its members. Other cooperations invest their profit in new wind turbines or solar panels. Then, there are also cooperations trickling down their profit to the local society. The Traais Energie Collectief, the energy collective of Terheijden (Brabant pronounciation: Traaië) invests a large sum of the profit it makes -by generating geothermal energy, solar panels and a wind turbine- in projects that increase the liveability of the village. The members of the cooperation (almost all the inhabitants of the village!) choose these projects for themselves. That way, the money earned with the generation of energy keeps on circulating in the local economy.  

Future music
Especially in the city, the placing of solar panels and wind turbines is still a puzzle, but, as is shown by Marjan van Aubel, artist and designer of solar technology, we can still organise energy generation in a more flexible and organic way. In one hour, enough sunlight reaches the earth to provide humanity with electricity for a whole year.⁽⁴⁾ This dazzling revelation changed the life of Van Aubel. A totally efficient use of all solar panels is an utopia, as we can not cover every peace of earth with solar panels. Still, Van Aubel was stimulated by the question how we can exploit the enormous potential of free solar energy.⁽⁵⁾ She developed the ‘Power Plant’, a mini-energy station to be put on your roof and forming a small ecosystem. A Power Plant is greenhouse made of transparent sunglass. The sunlight provides the vegetable garden inside the greenhouse with energy and generates power as to feed the hydroculture system that, in its turn, supplies the plants with nutrient water. This way, you can produce your own food using green energy right where it is being generated. 

Van Aubel’s work shows how the technology to generate energy is not something that needs to be put on a surface, but that it can also be integrated. With such an approach, all surfaces become potentially productive. We can build houses of which every single element -windows, curtains, walls, floors, can be utilized to generate energy.

The debate on energy transition is much about making the switch towards renewable energy, but less how we can save up energy. Van Aubel’s integration of energy generation makes for an important step in the energy cutback case. Van Aubel not only makes sure the energy source is renewable, but also that the whole ecosystem around it works as economical and efficient as possible, as to lose the least energy. For an energy cooperation, this approach is very useful too. It makes a lot of difference isolating the roof on which you put solar panel. That way you not only produce sustainably, you use economically as well.

Van Aubel talks about solar democracy: the sun is free and her energy should be available for everybody. Naturally, this does not go for the sun only, but for other renewable energy sources too. It neatly fits the philosophy of energy cooperations. If we manage to integrate the energy generation after Van Aubel’s example, we can utilize a increasingly stronger generation potential and shorten the lines between producer and user. 

How do you start a cooperation?
Do you feel it already? Join an energy cooperation in your environment. With Zuiderlicht, you can, for example, become a member for only one euro when you are living in or around Amsterdam (‘’we do not make a point when you’re from Landsmeer or Oostzaan.’’) Or you can start yourself. Two members and a visit to a notary is all it takes to call yourself a cooperation. After this first threshold, the real challenge starts, say Frank and Rolf. As a young cooperation you need to gather members and money, learn about the energy market and the ways of energy generation, working together with the municipality, and most of all: making connections with the local community around your project.  

Often, generated energy is being sold to a commercial energy supplier, that provides the energy with a sustainability certificate and distributes further. The necessity for these kind of certificates is big, as the consumer wishes to consume without feelings of guilt. With the energy-earnings, cooperations can pay back loans -for the building of windmills par example- and pay out the return to its members. It would be best if the energy goes directly to the members themselves, so that the line between producer and buyer becomes as short as possible, preventing the polluting transportation of energy. Some initiatives already manage to become energy supplier themselves. Windpark Krammer provides the generated power without interference of any party to four multinationals (that take off the energy and do not resell it). ‘Consumer-to-business’, but in general the combination of energy production and purchase remains a point leaving much room for gains to be made.

Sometimes it goes by trial and error, and you should not do it for a big salary, but both Frank and Rolf enjoy their projects a lot and made their passion their work. Although they have to work together with a lot of parties, they experience much autonomy in the cooperative. In the end, as a collective you determine what you do! We do not have to wait for the government and the multinationals. As citizens, we can, being largely independent from the neoliberal market,  charge the energy transition by generating energy in places we need it.

(1) IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, IPCC, 2022.

(2) ‘Klimaatverandering in Europa: feiten en cijfers’, Nieuws Europees Parlement, 19 juli 2018

(3) ‘Windpark Krammer: het grootste coöperatieve burgerinitiatief van Nederland’, Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, geraadpleegd op 14 augustus 2023.

(4) Solar Revolution, Dieter Broers, 2012.

(5) The beautiful future of solar power’ (TEDx-talk), Marjan van Aubel, december 2018.