December success story: (Offshore wind) Power to the people

Critics of community energy claim that community energy is too slow, too democratic, too unrealistic. However, the last couple of years energy communities are already pushing through a revolution in the energy sector that is breaking into the mainstream. Long dismissed as ‘niche’ initiatives for green hobbyists, energy communities are breaking ground in all segments of the energy market, growing large enough to compete with industrial private actors. SeaCoop CVSO - established in April 2022, stands as a beacon of this transformation.

Formed by 34 renewable energy citizen cooperatives - all members of the federations REScoop Flanders or REScoop Wallonia, SeaCoop adopts a visionary "20-20 approach." Philippe Awouters, project manager and board member of SeaCoop, explains this approach: “It entails acquiring a 20% stake in new offshore wind farms in Belgium and supplying 20% of the generated electricity to Belgian households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through cooperative suppliers Ecopower and COCITER.”

A minimum of 1% of the capital raised for the entire project should be opened to citizens. The tender criteria will allocate 10% of the points to citizen participation and the RECs are entitled to contract 25% of the energy through a citizen purchase power agreement (PPA). Last week, the Belgian government agreed on the details of the tender criteria. “Belgium will triple its North Sea wind power generation capacity within the next decade, equivalent to the total annual consumption of all Belgian households. The government has established specific criteria for the construction of these wind turbines. I have always placed great importance on citizen participation being a mandatory criterion. I am therefore pleased to announce that citizens will have direct access to offshore wind energy”, said Tinne Van der Straeten, Belgian minister for Energy. Adding: “Belgium is at the forefront of European innovation by incorporating citizen participation as a compulsory element. This groundbreaking approach ensures that wind energy profits can directly benefit citizens, communities and small businesses. By laying down these criteria now, we are keeping momentum in the realization of the new offshore wind zone. With affordable North Sea electricity from our own country, we ensure structurally lower prices and reduce CO2 emissions.”

As the EU Green Deal gains momentum and climate- and energy policies enter the critical implementation phase, SeaCoop stands as a testament to the essential connection between clean energy and social equity. On the one hand the EU’s progress to date remains “highly insufficient” as per the Climate Action Tracker. On the other hand, climate policies are increasingly entangled in culture wars claiming that such policies place disproportionate burden on the poorest segments of society. It is a false dilemma: addressing social inequalities concurrently with the climate crisis is a widely popular proposal, with a staggering 68 percent of Europeans being in favour of such a dual approach. As the world rallies around the ambitious goal of trebling renewable energy by 2030, social conflicts around ownership, permitting, and land use are set to intensify. Awouters sees an important role for energy communities in addressing this approach: “direct citizen ownership of renewable energy projects is an essential safeguard to garner social acceptance and accelerate the transition.”