News & Articles on Community Power
Developing renewable energy on the scale needed to make the energy transition will require public acceptance. Unlike nuclear power, where society can force a single plant on a community for the benefit of society at large, renewable energy will have to become ubiquitous in our communities and on our landscapes. This can only be possible when the majority accept this transformation. Experience has taught that acceptance is greatest when neighbors and the community at large can participate in the renewable energy revolution. The beauty of renewable energy is that everyone can take part–and own a stake in their future–when given an opportunity to do so. The challenge is creating the policies that make this possible, whether it’s for a community wind project or a solar garden.
Traverse City’s historic wind turbine retired, makes way for solar panels
By
Sheri Mcwhirter
An historic wind turbine that for decades served as a clean energy symbol and up north geographic marker recently came down near Traverse City.
Camden Hills Regional High School Windplanners celebrate 10 years of energy production with wind turbine
By
Sadie Woodruff
Ten years of the turbine in our backyard has shown we can coexist with wind energy.
Confirmed: Tvindkraft Designed to be Slightly Larger than Smith-Putnam
By
Paul Gipe
Erik Grove-Nielsen has confirmed that the Tvindkraft wind turbine was designed to be slightly larger than the Smith-Putnam wind turbine and become the world’s largest wind turbine in 1978.
Britain’s First Wind Farm–Three Decades of Delabole–What a Cornish Farmer with a Can Do Attitude Did
By
Paul Gipe
Thirty years ago Cornish farmer Peter Edwards, his late wife Phillipa, and his son Martin installed Great Britain’s first wind farm despite the attacks of those who said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done. But they persisted, overcoming all the planning objections and the naysayers, completing the project in late 1991.
Why Minnesota’s Community Solar Program is the Best
By
John Farrell and Maria Mccoy
Minnesota’s community solar program grew to 822 megawatts of operational capacity in November 2021. The chart above shows the progress of projects through the program since August 2015, and the nearly two-year lag between the program launch in December 2014 and the successful ignition of multiple megawatts of capacity in January 2017. Note: the megawatt sum of projects in the application stage reported by Xcel Energy is a minimum, hence the plus symbol.
Co-owned by locals, Britain’s biggest subsidy-free onshore wind farm is opened
By
Alban Thurston
Locals around Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway now own 5% of the £50 million, 46 MW Crossdykes park, thanks to the Holyrood government’s Community & Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES).
We the Power: How community energy can free people and help the planet
By
Emanuela Barbiroglio
Born and raised in the German city of Schönau, Sebastian Sladek learned the meaning of the word “community” quite soon. Words like “energy”, “power” and “rebellion” immediately followed. . . They were taking over the Schönau power grid and founding their own as a civil society. In 1994 Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS) was founded: finally a green-electricity supplier.
Post feed-in tariff futures for pioneer renewable plants: Onshore wind power
By
Isabel Sutton
One solution for older wind plants is to enter a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a company such Greenpeace Energy, which has provided a lifeline to Reinhard Christiansen’s pioneering wind plant at Ellhöft in Schleswig-Holstein.
Share of citizen energy in decline as funding runs out and big investors take over
By
Isabel Sutton
1 January 2021 marked the beginning of the end of a key phase in Germany’s Energiewende. On this date, the pioneers of Germany’s energy transition stopped receiving the feed-in tariff that, for the last 20 years, has guaranteed them a fixed price for generating electricity via wind, solar or biomass.
Copenhagen’s Legendary Wind Park Middelgrunden at a Crossroads
By
Paul Hockenos
The world’s largest wind farm two decades ago may not survive as a co-operative. At least this is what the Danish energy industry says. The co-op’s founders remain defiant – and optimistic.
