The “REScoop 20-20-20 project” aims to improve social acceptance of RES-e generation (“RES-e” standing for “electricity from renewable energy sources”) with its proven model of local cooperative citizen involvement. RES-e projects face manipulation by associations that fight the common good for their activists’ (perceived) self-interest.
The active participation of citizens as shareholders in RES-e cooperative companies has proven efficient to address this problem. It makes citizens more interested to unearth the real truth about the tangible economic, energy and social advantages of such projects. Citizens can influence siting and sizing decisions. Very often local authorities are actively involved in these initiatives. Indeed, no longer easily vilified anonymous big companies earn from these developments, but the local community and even the individual citizens benefit.
By reducing delays in authorisations and at the same time providing proven formats to secure (local) financing for RES-projects, the cooperative approach has proven its efficacy all over Europe in the past decades. The recently founded European Federation of Groups and Cooperatives of Citizens for Renewable Energy (REScoop.eu) will disseminate this model actively, fine-tuned to each market’s specific issues. This will contribute significantly to the EU 2020 commitments.
The project is a second step for REScoop.eu. Its members have developed hundreds of RES-projects, and have experience in production, distribution and supply of renewable energy.
The project’s three specific objectives are:
- to draw up an inventory of existing RES-coops and their RES projects in order to identify their added value in fostering RES in Europe;
- to develop and test methodologies based on best practises;
- to disseminate cooperative RES approaches.
Consortium members
- Ecopower cvba (Belgium – coordinator)
- Avanzi (Italy)
- Enercoop (France)
- ODE Nerderland (The Netherlands)
- EMES European Research Network asbl (EU)
- Energy4All (UK)
- ElektrizitätsWerke Schönau (Germany)
- Middelgrundens Vindmøllelaug (Denmark)
- REScoop.be (Belgium)
- ALIenergy (UK)
- Cooperatives Europe (EU)
- Elabora/Confcooperative (Italy)
