How to give birth to an energy cooperative?

An energy cooperative never pops out of nowhere. Rather, it grows silently with motivated citizens putting their heads together and imagining how they can themselves produce renewable energy. Join me and my guest Chloé Verlinden to learn about some great ways for citizens to become energy producers, both on solar and offshore wind energy. Chloé explains the cooperative’s activities with external partners. She also talks about how the cooperative is organised and how to protect cooperative volunteers from burnout. Chloé is co-founder of Brussels’ first energy cooperative called Brupower which operates in the Brussels Region.

In the near future, this brandnew cooperative will provide three types of renewable energy services

• energy production from solar installations
• energy sharing from the locally-produced production
• energy supply providing electricity to all Brussels residents

Currently, the Brupower team is also working a lot with public authorities and the DSO to make sure that cooperatives can take part in tenders and are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis bigger, commercial players.

This episode was produced with support from SCCALE 20-30-50. SCCALE is an EU project (Horizon 2020 programme) which makes collaboration happen to get many more energy communities up and running. The people behind SCCALE203050 work on a methodology and toolkit for citizens, cities and policy makers. If you, too, want to see more local energy communities across Europe, check out the toolkit and explore all of the project’s resources at the website sccale203050.eu.