Electric power
Even amid climate breakdown, more than half of electric power worldwide is still generated from fossil fuels. This is in part because large corporations can still turn a profit using the dirtiest fuels despite the heavy health and environmental costs we all pay – from poisoned groundwater to decimated mountains to epidemics of respiratory illness. A better future is possible if greatly reduced energy consumption goes hand-in-hand with community-owned and -controlled renewable power systems. Below are some actions you can take to help make that future a reality.
Private corporations own most of the world’s electricity infrastructure, which means local governments and citizens have only limited control over their utilities. Taking back ownership creates the conditions for local, democratic decision-making around infrastructure placement, availability, pricing, and power sources.
Take action
- Form a publicly-owned electric power provider with The American Public Power Association's guide Public Power for Your Community, which includes case studies (US).
- Pair this action with other campaigns and policies for energy democracy by visiting our Advocate for energy democracy page in this guide.
Get inspired
- The German community group Our Hamburg, Our Grid, Germany ousted multinational energy giant Vattenfall and replaced it with a local power utility.
- The residents of Feldheim, Germany, funded and built their own electrical grid powered by 100% renewable energy after the utility company refused to sell or lease its grid to the village.
Most of us do not trust fossil fuel corporations to put people and planet first, but there is no guarantee that "green energy" companies will behave any more responsibly: they are subject to the same profit and growth imperatives as older power companies and utilities. The solution is for communities to produce their own power.
Take action
- Bring locally-owned renewable energy to your community with help from Friends of the Earth Europe's Community Energy: A Practical Guide to Reclaiming Power, which offers strategies for individuals, community groups, and local governments.
- Establish a "solar garden" where you live. These solar arrays, located on a large rooftop or on the ground, are cooperatively owned by nearby residents, and make renewable energy affordable for renters and low-income residents. This free video-based training program, Solar Gardener Training, describes how to start a solar garden in your community.
- Browse country-specific resources, networks, and guides to community energy: Coalition for Community Energy (Australia), Community Energy Network (New Zealand), Portland Energy Conservation (USA), Community Energy England, Community Energy Wales, Community Energy Scotland, ReScoop (Europe).
- Learn about how to start a community solar garden with this free video-based training program, Solar Gardener Training.
Get inspired
- The 100 residents of Isle of Eigg in the UK own and operate their own electricity provider, Eigg Electric, which features a mix of wind, solar, and small-scale hydropower.
- Avani Bio Energy, a social enterprise in Uttarhakand, India, builds generators powered by gasified pine needles, which are a fire hazard if not collected.
- Low Carbon Hub in the UK town of Oxfordshire turns unused roof space and fields into renewable energy power stations, funding the projects through community share offers.
- The 50,000 members of the Ecopower cooperative in Flanders, Belgium, have reduced their electricity consumption by 50%, and produce the remainder with locally-owned wind, solar and water power.
- Members of the Bethesda Energy Local Club in the UK coordinate their electricity use with peak generation from a small locally-owned hydropower station.
- The members of Cooperative Energy Futures in Minneapolis, US have created several cooperatively-owned solar gardens.
- For hundreds more examples of community-driven energy projects already underway, check out The Community Power Report. Also see Energy Stories from Vikalp Sangam (India) and the Community Power Map from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (US).
- The database Go 100% is a list of communities worldwide that have achieved or plan to achieve 100% renewable electrical energy. (Note that not all projects on this list are decentralized or under community control.
Microgrids are local energy networks that can operate autonomously from the main grid. Whether in remote communities or those connected to an existing electrical grid, microgrids provide resilience against storms and power outages, take back power from electric utility monopolies, and enable us to collectively choose and manage our own energy sources and distribution systems.
Take action
- Learn the basics of microgrids with the US Department of Energy's article How Microgrids Work.
- Plan a microgrid for your community with Community Energy Scotland's step-by-step Project Development Toolkit.
- Work with your local government to create a microgrid with Microgrid Knowledge's guidebook Community Microgrids: for Mayors and City Leaders Seeking Clean, Reliable and Locally Controlled Energy.
Get inspired
- The social enterprise SolShare in Bangladesh builds peer-to-peer solar energy networks, enabling solar panel owners to link up with nearby homes and businesses to trade electricity.
- The Digo Bikas Institute in Nepal has built village-scale solar nano grids in remote communities.
- Residents in two neighborhoods in New York City, US are developing the Brooklyn Microgrid, where they can buy and sell locally produced renewable energy via a networked grid of rooftop solar arrays. See Morgan Peck's article A Microgrid Grows in Brooklyn for the full story.
- Spiti Off the Grid, a project of Ecosphere in the Spiti Valley of the Indian Himalayas, helps the villages of the region develop autonomous, community-run and -owned renewable electricity microgrids. One microgrid uses wind, solar, and bicycle power to supply electricity to a monastery.
Producing some of the electricity you use at home is a very direct way to lessen your dependence on energy corporations. Off-grid renewable systems are more subject to the vagaries of intermittent sources of power – whether sun, wind, or water – but that’s actually a good thing: it lets you know that the energy you use isn’t endless, and encourages conservation as a way of life. All the actions below lessen our dependence on commercial energy providers, cultivate awareness of our daily energy usage, and attune us to the potential of the local environment to meet our energy needs.
Take action
- Find numerous practical guides on small-scale decentralized electricity production from LowImpact.org, including pedal-powered generators, small-scale wind turbines and home-scale solar.
- Browse dozens of creative small-scale electricity systems on Waldenlabs' Energy page.
- Learn to build a small-scale wind energy system with Windexchange's The Small Wind Guidebook.
- Design and install your own micro solar or wind energy system with LowImpact.org's book Wind and Solar Electricity and low-cost companion course, the Solar Electricity Online Course.
Get inspired
- Sundaya in West Java, Indonesia, produces and distributes home-scale 12-volt solar energy kits that don't require expertise, tools, or literacy to install and maintain.
- Resilient Power Puerto Rico is distributing solar electric power kits to families devastated by hurricanes, to help the island achieve energy sovereignty.
- The Bali Appropriate Technology Institute in Tabanan, Indonesia, empowers rural communities to fulfill their own water and electrical needs through rainwater collection, ram pumps, micro hydropower generators, and more, all made with locally-available materials.
- The intentional community Living Energy Farm in the US state of Virginia has created a low-cost off-grid system that powers a multi-family home, machine shop, and agricultural processing center through direct drive, direct current power and long-lasting nickel iron batteries.
- The members of Unión de Cooperativas Tosepan in Cuetzalan, Mexico, have rejected big energy projects like hydroelectric dams and high-voltage transmission lines in favor of home-scale electricity systems.
Town-wide "Going Carbon Neutral" campaigns not only push for reduced energy usage and carbon emissions, they also strengthen community. The small town of Ashton Hayes in the UK launched the concept by conducting an audit of the town's energy use, which helped determine which changes would reduce carbon emissions the most. To change their collective behavior, residents launched campaigns and projects – all with a light, festive, guilt-free approach and without government involvement. Since then, many other towns around the world have launched similar campaigns. Learn how to join them here.
Take action
- Launch your own campaign with Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral's guide A Practical Toolkit for Communities Aiming for Carbon Neutrality.
- Learn another perspective on launching a campaign with this guide from the Canadian town of Eden Mills, So You Want to Go Carbon Neutral: It Takes a Village.
- Develop a solid energy strategy for your town covering conservation, electricity, heating, and transportation with Local Energy Scotland's Community-led local energy plan toolkit.
Get inspired
- A participant in Ashton Hayes found that the campaign not only enabled her family to cut their household energy use in half, it also led them to use green construction methods, start a garden, get to know their neighbors better, and participate more in community life. Read about it in The Guardian article My village is going carbon neutral.
- Eden Mills Going Carbon Neutral in Canada focuses on retrofitting buildings, planting trees, and celebrating all behavior shifts, large and small.
- In the podcast Energy Democracy! Building movements to create solutions by Friends of the Earth Europe, energy experts and activists from all over Europe discuss energy efficiency, cooperatives, mobility, remunicipalization, and more.
- Renewable energy policy in the US is complicated and continually changing, but a good overview of current incentives can be found in Renewable energy explained, from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA)
- The article Thinking Outside the Grid, by Local Futures’ Managing Programs Director Steve Gorelick, explores the need for a systemic shift towards decentralized, local energy production.
- The article What is ‘Energy Denial’? by Don Fitz, examines the often-unspoken harmful impacts of "clean energy," and stresses the need for drastically reducing our overall energy usage.
- The books Community Energy: A Guide to Community-Based Renewable-Energy Projects, by Gordan Cowtan (UK) and Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects by Greg Pahl (US) dive deeply into creating systemic changes to our energy systems.