Community Owned Renewable Energy: Enabling the Transition Towards Renewable Energy?

The energy transition enables more spatially and economically distributed means of organising energy generation, leading to changes in how energy systems are integrated into societies around the world. This chapter analyses the institutional contexts that support a specific social form of energy ownership—community-owned renewable energy (CORE)—and explores its impacts at local and national levels in the context of energy transitions. To this purpose, we analyse bottom-up developments in Germany and Australia. Concluding, CORE has a unique contribution to make, particularly in generating the social conditions that facilitate a rapid and smooth transition in which a range of stakeholders participate and benefit. Less community involvement in the transition risks losing public participation and acceptance, which could jeopardise or slow energy system transformation.