3rd International Community Wind Symposium calls for natural right to use renewables for self-supply

Last Thursday, 130 community energy experts from more than 20 countries met for the 3rd International Community Wind Symposium hosted by the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) and Landesverbandes Erneuerbare Energien NRW (LEE NRW), in cooperation with Energieagentur.NRW and Genossenschaftsverband and supported by a range of further organisations. In line with the main theme “Future through Innovation”, the event explored new opportunities for community power models. There was strong agreement that the introduction of auctions instead of feed-in tariff has put community power investors under strong pressure, as the ongoing research of WWEA and LEE NRW has revealed. 

On the occasion of the symposium, more than 20 organisations from around the world adopted a resolution “Community Power for All!” following an initiative of Bündnis Bürgerenergie and specifying what these organisations see as required so that community based renewable energy can play its role as driver of the global switch to 100% renewable energy. The resolutions welcomes in particular the most recent decisions by the European Union to strengthen the role of citizens as prosumers as well as the German Federal Government’s planned programme for community power for Africa. 

The full text of the resolution including the list of supporting organisations is available online: https://wwindea.org/blog/2018/09/07/resolution-of-the-3rd-international-community-wind-symposium/