For three decades, citizens, e.g. in local energy cooperatives, have been promoting the energy transition, by initiating and installing individual wind turbines and later also larger wind farms. Feed-in legislation, privileges in the federal building code and the renewable energy act EEG provided the legal framework for citizens to make the energy transition practically possible, by taking entrepreneurial risk at an early stage and generating innovation. Even today you can convince of countless wind projects that without major conflicts massive investments were made in renewable energy and thus in the future of the respective community and ultimately into the future of our country, often even primarily supported by voluntary work.