Community-Owned Renewables in Germany's Friedrich-Wilhelm-Lübke-Koog

December 23, 2010

By Paul Gipe

The Friedrich-Wilhelm-Lübke-Koog is a polder in the far northwest corner of Germany near the Danish border. It faces the North Sea and is just south of the railway causeway to the summer resort island of Sylt. The polder and its citizens are one of the best examples in Germany of communities developing wind and solar energy for their own benefit.

There are 170 residents, nearly all farmers and their families, living within the 1,350 ha polder. The koog or polder contains 25 active farms and it has had a long history of innovative farming and more recently of developing its renewable energy resources.

In 1990 the koog saw the construction of their first wind farm, dubbed the Nordfriesland wind park, with 250 kW wind turbines manufacturered in the nearby port city of Husum.

The following year the koog's farmers built their first first Bürger or citizen-owned wind project. By 1999 there were a total of 82 wind turbines operating in the polder.

In 2009 the old wind turbines were removed and new ones installed. The "repowerings" reduced the number of turbines to 30 units, 25 of which are owned by 170 Bürgers of the community.

Hans-Detlef Feddersen, one of the organizers of the community-owned project, spoke at recent conference in Husum about the role that "Friedrich-Wilhelm-Lübke-Koog GmbH & Co. KG" plays in the community.

Feddersen emphasizes that the project creates significant local benefits by generating income for local owners through revenue from the turbines, and from land leases or royalties for those landowners with turbines on their property. The project also creates business for local companies, as well as for local banks. And of course, the wind turbines provide climate protection benefits for everyone, including those, like those in the koog, who live below sea level.

Key themes of the Bürger Wind Movement

• We want renewable energy
• We can do it ourselves
• We bring our own risk capital and invest in the region
• We take the risk together
• We accept the change to the landscape that results from a new form of energy

"For low-cost projects we use GbR form of incorporation, and for more costly projects we use GmbH & Co. KG form," Feddersen explained.

Feddersen said the key elements of the project's success within the community are

• Transparency,
• Transparency,
• Transparency,
• People within the region who want it and have the energy to make it happen,
• Willingness to cooperate and compromise,
• Creative problem solving, and
• The attitude that "together we're strong."

The koog is located within the kreis of Nordfriesland in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Nordfriesland has 166,000 inhabitants with in its 2,050 square kilometers.

In Nordfriesland, more than 90 % of all wind-turbines (700) are citizen owned, said Feddersen. These community-owned wind turbines generate 1.3 TWh per year and produce 7.6 million euros in business taxes, 3.7 million euros in lease revenues, and sales revenue of 2.4 million per year.

In addition to the wind turbines in the koog, farmers have also added 30-50 kW to of solar PV to their barn roofs. Because the polder is man made, the road pattern in the koog is rectilinear and most of the barns have a south-facing roof.

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