1. Introduction: Community Energy and Democracy

A similar idea is formulated by della Porta, according to which participation, deliberation and social movements can contribute to saving democracy (della Porta 2013).

See also Luhmann (2009: 159 ff.) for a fundamental critique of the concepts of participation and the achievement of legitimacy. In his fundamental critique, Luhmann outlines an overall paradox of participation, which is caused on the one hand by logical incongruities of the approach itself, but on the other hand also in the undesirable consequences such as increasing bureaucratization. Jason Brennan is currently very prominent in his fundamental critique of the ideal of political participation and also questions (Western) democracy as such (see Brennan 2016).

On collaborative approaches and practices in the literature see Booher 2004; Skelcher et al. 2005; Ansell and Gash 2008; Armbruster and Lærke 2008; Donahue and Zeckhauser 2011; Hemetsberger 2012; Koontz and Newig 2014; Reuter 2015; Challies et al. 2016; Gailing and Röhring 2016; Hutter 2016. Römmele speaks of collaborative democracy in the context of citizen participation in the energy transition (Römmele 2013).

See also Brown and Brown 2009; Boyle and Open University 2012; Dincer 2012; Everett and Open University 2012; Kataki 2012; Tester 2012; Halff et al. 2014; Brown et al. 2015; Dhar Chakrabarti and Energy and Resources Institute 2015.

In comparison to “citizen energy”, “community energy” is the more general, umbrella term and is mostly referred to in research and literature. The term citizen energy focuses more on the individual level, which means that citizens are participating in or have founded the community energy project at hand. The term commnity energy includes projects with diverse ways of founding, operating and participating in renewable energy facilities by individuals, communities, organizations, public institutions or joint ventures, but excludes purely marked-based private enterprises. Therefore, in the following, the more common term community energy is used to address and include all forms and variations of citizen- or community-driven, participatory energy projects.

See The Politics of Small Things (Goldfarb 2007), Democracy in Small Groups (Gastil 1993) and Grassroots Democracy (Kaufman and Dilla Alfonso 1997; Nunes and de Sousa Santos 2006; Stout 2013); experiences with Small Change at the local level in urban planning (Hamdi 2004) as well as Small-scale Research (Denscombe 2010) and Do It Yourself Citizenship (Ratto and Boler 2014), also ideas on making things visible: Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (Latour and Weibel 2005), in an ecological context, Small is Beautiful (Schumacher 1973), Banks et al. 2013 speak of Everyday Ethics in the case of community participation, Marres 2012 of Everyday Publics in the case of material participation; Lifestyle Politics are described by de Moor 2017.

For example, the literature (Byrne and Toly 2006) points out that “threats” to the environment have been and continue to be perceived: climate change, acid rain, pollution, loss of biodiversity, etc.

See Friedrichs 1987: 335 ff.

See Berger 1991: 328 ff; Passoth 2008: 219 ff; also Weingart 1982, 1989; Rammert 1993, 2007.

According to Rammert, the analysis of techniques is (1982: 39) essentially about:

Accordingly, technology assessment attempts to “respond to technology blockades by well-organized critics as well as to the growing multiperspectivity of technology assessment by developing and implementing moderation and discourse procedures and by attempting to open up new potential for action and innovation through negotiations with stakeholders” (Martinsen and Simonis 2000: 12).

See on the decentralized, self-sufficient energy system approach Teske 2005; Alanne and Saari 2006; Hiremath et al. 2007; Moser 2011; Müller et al. 2011; Watson and Devine-Wright 2011; Eiselt 2012; Gailing et al. 2013; Klagge and Brocke 2013; Ruppert-Winkel et al. 2013; Gailing and Röhring 2014; Goldthau 2014; Ruppert-Winkel and Hauber 2014; Funcke and Bauknecht 2016. On the relationship between decentralization and acceptance of renewable energies, see Hildebrand 2015.

In this context, there is therefore also talk of a “revolution”. Such considerations also exist with regard to a “Third Industrial Revolution” (see Bäcker 2008; Jänicke and Jacob 2008; Rifkin 2011). This refers to an overall social upheaval - triggered by environmental problems - towards an ecological state, which includes changes in all areas of life. The authors of these works usually venture towards a conceivable future, whereby the descriptions are to be understood as suggestions and demands for an ecologically oriented reorientation of society. Leprich and Rogall (2014), for example, speak of a social transformation process in the case of the energy transition.

Skeptics of conventional forms of energy are mostly open to the alternatives of this in the form of renewable energy, which results in a discussion about possible use, visions and ideas for the future. This “euphoric” strand proclaims not only the “pure” establishment of renewable energies, but also small-scale, decentralized options for the construction of an alternative energy system that is to be autonomous and connected with ecological balance (Eiselt 2012). In this interpretation, the greening of the energy system is linked to social ideals and overcoming the imbalance between the users of the energy system and those societies and social classes that cannot participate in energy. Thus, the politician Hermann Scheer, as a solar pioneer, advocated a solar age and mass application of renewables throughout his life (see Scheer 2010).

According to this approach, energy should be generated and consumed locally without transmitting complications (Eiselt 2012). The advantages of this are the elimination of electricity transmission masts and the associated transmission losses, financial benefits for the local population, as well as local tax revenues and regional value creation through companies that build and operate the energy plants. In addition, higher acceptance and trust of the local population towards the energy plants could be generated. Close to this decentralized energy generation idea is the approach that these local energy plants are built and operated by citizens themselves or municipal companies (municipal utilities) (community energy). This would mean that the energy plants would no longer be concentrated and of large scale, but small-scale and distributed throughout all regions. This would tend to exclude a “threat factor” such as from a large power plant.

In Germany, most likely represented by the 100% renewable energy regions approach as well as bioenergy villages, where municipalities aim for a complete coverage of their energy demand by renewable energy resources (see Moser 2011; Ruppert-Winkel et al. 2013; Grundmann and Ehlers 2016).

Social innovation research has become more prominent just recently, see Taylor 1970; Henderson 1993; Kanter 2000; McElroy 2002; Mumford and Moertl 2003; Mulgan 2006; Regalia 2006; Taatila et al. 2006; Leadbeater 2007; Martin and Osberg 2007; Maruyama et al. 2007; Moulaert et al. 2007; Mulgan et al. 2007; Drewe et al. 2008; Heap et al. 2008; Jegou and Manzini 2008; Phills et al. 2008; Moulaert and MacCallum 2009; Pol and Ville 2009; Westley and Antadze 2009; Goldsmith 2010; Goldsmith et al. 2010; Howaldt and Jacobsen 2010; Lettice and Parekh 2010; Moulaert 2010; Moulaert et al. 2010a, 2010b; Murray et al. 2010; Howaldt et al. 2011; Moore and Westley 2011; Nicholls and Murdock 2011; Young 2011; Beck and Kropp 2012; Faaij et al. 2013; Moulaert 2013; Rückert-John 2013; Cajaiba-Santana 2014; Howaldt et al. 2014; Rückert-John et al. 2014; Kopf 2015; Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council of Ministers Secretariat 2015; Wittmayer et al. 2015b.