Bürgerwerke is an umbrella cooperative of over 125 citizen energy cooperatives. The initial idea for an umbrella cooperative came from the founders of the Heidelberg Energy Cooperative when they realised that the cooperatives they knew were all facing the same challenges.

Many energy cooperatives are still heavily reliant on voluntary work. However, a task such as electricity sales can hardly be solved by volunteers alone. The demands are too high. You can't do it "on the side".

Fabian Stoffel, project developer for open-space PV at Bürgerwerke

In dialogue with Fabian Stoffel we were able to gain an insight into the work of Bürgerwerke and at the same time talk about the experiences of a Bürgerwerke member. The Peace-promoting Energy Cooperative Herford eG (FEGH) recently celebrated the inauguration of its solar park in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Membership of Bürgerwerke offers a portfolio of services

SonneSammeln: What is the concept behind Bürgerwerke? And what are the benefits of membership?

Fabian Stoffel: Bürgerwerke provides various services for the network of member cooperatives. The main task that the cooperatives fulfil with and for their members is to Sale and marketing of citizen electricity. However, a whole range of tasks have been added over time, such as supporting members with professionalisation, providing infrastructure (member portal), offers for further training, spaces for exchange, joint campaign planning, and much more. Being a member of Bürgerwerke has many advantages. Above all, our members repeatedly emphasise the power of community, networking and exchange. In addition, all member cooperatives in the network are also supported and receive funds with which they can implement further energy transition projects.

"If we want to achieve the urgently needed energy transition, we absolutely need real opportunities for participation"

SonneSammeln: Which forms of renewable energy are being implemented by Bürgerwerke? How important is the project development of ground-mounted PV systems? How did this come about?

Fabian Stoffel: Bürgerwerke directly implements project development for ground-mounted photovoltaic systems. This new business area has arisen from the needs of Bürgerwerke's member cooperatives. A survey in 2020 showed that the citizens' energy cooperatives would like the support of their umbrella cooperative in this area. A corresponding concept was therefore developed and this new department established.

An important common starting point is of course to anchor the citizen energy movement more firmly in the area of ground-mounted PV systems. So far, citizen participation in such projects has often been weak. We want to change this, because if we want to increase acceptance for the urgently needed energy transition, we absolutely need genuine opportunities for participation. The democratic organisational form of a citizens' energy cooperative, which operates a solar park over decades, is the ideal solution. At the same time, this also helps local cooperatives to take the step towards professionalisation. In addition to solar energy, our member cooperatives are also active in many other fields such as wind power and heating. Furthermore, on the initiative of the energy cooperatives in our network, there are also citizen-driven innovations in the field of e-mobility, such as the Citizens' charging network.

SonneSammeln: In addition to supporting the development of solar park projects, Bürgerwerke also sells electricity and gas. How does the sale of electricity from renewable sources work? What advantages does this have for the end consumer and the energy cooperative?

Fabian Stoffel: The biggest advantage for end consumers: An electricity contract with Bürgerwerke has no connection to fossil fuels - this is where the "real" green electricity providers differ from the vast majority of basic suppliers and the large electricity companies, behind whose cheaper green tariffs there are often only certificates. At the same time, purchasing energy through the local citizens' energy cooperative supports their work and that of the Bürgerwerke community as a whole, instead of delivering returns for large stock corporations.

For energy cooperatives, the sale of Citizen eco-electricity The major advantage of this is that they receive 0.5 cents in subsidies for every kilowatt hour consumed. At the same time, the effect is that the electricity produced by the local citizens' energy cooperative can also be purchased by the end consumer, at least in terms of the balance sheet. Physically, of course, the electricity from the socket always comes from the nearest power plant, regardless of the company with which the consumer has concluded a contract. However, if the local energy cooperative now sells the electricity from its PV or wind power plants to Bürgerwerke with a direct supply contract and Bürgerwerke then also has these quantities in its portfolio for end consumers, the result is a complete picture if the end consumers then purchase citizen eco-electricity via the local cooperative.     

But watch out when it comes to "independence from fossil fuels". CitizensÖkogas we have two tariffs that have a high proportion of natural gas. We obtain this via a municipal utility association. We do this because biogas is very expensive (an increasingly scarce commodity) and we want to give all consumers the opportunity to participate in the energy transition - even if they heat with gas.

A network for citizen energy cooperatives

SonneSammeln: A major advantage for the citizens' energy cooperatives at Bürgerwerke is also the contact with other cooperatives, i.e. the networking. What opportunities for mutual exchange do the citizens' cooperatives offer their members?

Fabian Stoffel: Regular online workshops on a wide range of topics are particularly valuable in this regard, to which external speakers are invited and cooperatives themselves can often present examples of best practice and answer each other's questions. There is also a member portal with many different functions and a forum in which extensive dialogue is also possible. There are self-organised working groups on individual topics.

In addition, our Annual General Meeting is a well-attended event where there is plenty of room for networking. Simply knowing about other cooperatives and their activities is often very helpful in finding solutions to challenges. Bürgerwerke is of course very happy to mediate.    

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A member of Bürgerwerke reports

The Peace-promoting Energy Cooperative Herford eG (FEGH) reports on her experience with the development of ground-mounted PV systems in cooperation with Bürgerwerke.

SonneSammeln: Mr Stoffel, you recently celebrated the opening of a solar park in Herford. What project is this? And how did the idea to build the solar park come about?  

Fabian Stoffel: We have completed our largest project to date, the Hainkamp" community solar park on the edge of an industrial estate in Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia. The plant has an output of around 2.4 MWp and was built on a former landfill site. We are particularly pleased that we were able to finance more than half of the plant with equity, i.e. money from citizens, and only needed a small amount from the bank. The idea for the solar park came to us as a result of the successful realisation of our first ground-mounted PV project. We looked at the city's analysis of potential sites and examined the areas proposed there. In the end, this area seemed the most suitable and the owner quickly became enthusiastic about the idea of a community solar park.

"We came across the topic of electricity sales and thus quickly came across Bürgerwerke"

SonneSammeln: Your citizens' energy cooperative, which is a member of the Bürgerwerke umbrella cooperative, was responsible for realising this idea. How did the citizens' energy cooperative come about? And why did you decide to work together with Bürgerwerke?

Fabian Stoffel: Our cooperative was founded in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At that time, some people in our region, who were mainly organised in the anti-nuclear and peace movement, decided that they wanted to do something themselves to promote the energy transition. This gave birth to the idea of the Herford Peace-Promoting Energy Co-operative. Originally, the first idea was to realise a community wind turbine. However, this has not yet been realised due to the many obstacles and difficult conditions in our district. However, we did not let this get us down and instead tackled photovoltaics and realised the first roof projects.

This then developed well over the years and we looked for other business areas. In the process, we came across the topic of electricity sales and thus quickly found Bürgerwerke. As we also found the strong cooperative idea and similar values here and were also able to gain access to an entire network of citizen energy cooperatives, it was a very good fit for us.  

SonneSammeln: Do you also have the electricity distributed by Bürgerwerke? If so, how is the cooperation organised?

Fabian Stoffel: Yes, we are currently selling the electricity from our larger plants to Bürgerwerke via PPAs. We are very pleased about this, as we also sell the BürgerÖkostrom offer from Bürgerwerke via our website. This means that our customers can actually purchase the electricity we produce, at least on balance. We were able to agree on fair prices with Bürgerwerke and the process is also running smoothly.  

SonneSammeln: What specific steps in project development have you planned and realised together with Bürgerwerke? How can you visualise the collaboration? Why was this so valuable for your project?

Fabian Stoffel: In fact, we had already realised ground-mounted PV projects in Herford before the Bürgerwerke established their offering. It was therefore more a case of Bürgerwerke also being able to benefit from us. The experience that I gained as a volunteer in our co-operative is now available to me full-time as a project developer at Bürgerwerke. Of course, there are now many more resources available there than in our local cooperative and, conversely, I can bring many new things that I learn here back to the cooperative. This is very valuable and with this knowledge we can avoid mistakes that we made in previous projects in the future. For example, in future we will pay closer attention to a comprehensive list of services when awarding contracts. We have also purchased the Bürgerwerke land lease model as we liked it better than the one we used before.

SonneSammeln: Were there any difficulties?

Fabian Stoffel: Yes, of course there were. We were particularly unlucky when it came to procuring components. Unfortunately, we ordered at a time when prices were at an all-time high as a result of the war in Ukraine and the supply chain difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This initially looked unproblematic, as the revenue opportunities for the electricity to be fed into the grid were also particularly high at this time. However, these fell again very quickly, but the components were ordered at the corresponding prices. Although we have always calculated conservatively and built in many buffers, the yield will be lower than initially thought and we have to regularly endeavour to achieve the best possible marketing. Bürgerwerke is also helping us a lot here, as we were able to conclude a good PPA with them for the first three years.      

SonneSammeln: Was the solar park in Herford the first solar park of your community energy cooperatives? Are you planning further projects?

Fabian Stoffel: We commissioned our first ground-mounted PV system on a landfill site in the neighbouring municipality of Kirchlengern back in 2020. As we learnt a lot from this and the performance of the system even exceeded our expectations, we decided to focus on ground-mounted PV systems. With such large projects, it is much easier to achieve the necessary speed for the energy transition and the higher yields allow us to professionalise our previously purely voluntary work step by step. We therefore already have the next projects in the pipeline and are currently working on their realisation. The energy transition cannot be advanced quickly and efficiently enough with small rooftop projects alone.

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Daniela Feil conducted the interview with Fabian Stoffel on 10 December 2024.

Fabian Stoffel is a project developer for ground-mounted PV parks at Bürgerwerke eG and in this position supports the individual citizen energy cooperatives that are members of Bürgerwerke in project development.