The Belgian Towns Producing Their Own Green Power

Energy prices in Europe have skyrocketed in the last year. But not in some towns in Belgium, where consumers have joined together to form co-ops and are generating their own sustainable electricity. It is a popular, and growing, model in Europe.

 SPIEGEL, BY JAN PETTER IN EEKLO, BELGIUM, 06.04.2023, 

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Along with 65,000 other households, the couple are members of Belgium’s largest energy co-operative. The co-op produces and delivers green energy to its members at cost. When compared to the large corporations in the industry, Ecopower is just a dwarf, but it is a popular one. Last year, three times more people wanted to join the co-operative than could be supplied with electricity. At the moment, Ecopower is no longer accepting members.

The co-operative has its roots in Eeklo, Vandercammen’s hometown in northern Flanders. The "Eco" in the name once stood for the ecological convictions of its founders. These days, though, the name can easily be understood as a reference to the sustainable energy it produces. In the current energy crisis, Ecopower and other co-operatives offer reliability. Whereas others engage in speculation, jack up prices out of fear or throw out customers, Ecopower continues to provide cheap energy from renewable sources.

"We make long-term contracts," says Jan de Pauw, who works for Ecopower as a project developer. "We only provide energy to our members at a dependable price, without earning much profit." It’s also a rather small operation, regionally focused instead of seeking to expand multi~nationally. Many of its customers live within sight of the wind turbines and solar farms from which they get their energy.

Excellent Wind Power Conditions

Belgium is a leader when it comes to the concept of energy co-ops. In part, as de Pauw says during a tour of a facility, because of the conditions. After Denmark, he notes, Belgium is home to the best conditions in Europe for harnessing wind energy. He gestures to the flat, expansive fields, across which the wind blows down from the North Sea. But there are also other reasons. "Personally, I just didn’t want my money going to a French company month after month," says de Pauw.

Belgium is divided into French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders. The differences between the two populations have produced a sense of regional pride, with many needs being met locally. Including, in this case, the production of sustainable energy. Despite the local focus, however, de Pauw is convinced that the model could provide a more universal solution that would work in large parts of Europe and beyond.

One reason he highlights is the extremely small number of protests against the wind turbines that the Ecopower co-operative has erected here. De Pauw has collected the data to prove it: "Ten times fewer" complaints were lodged against Ecopower’s plans when compared to conventional projects, he claims. "Even those who weren’t members of the co-op accepted the projects."

The "not-in-my-backyard" (NIMBY) problem is one that has dogged the expansion of windfarms in many parts of Europe in recent years. In Bavaria, for example, complaints from locals have led to a situation in which the installation of wind power facilities has come to a virtual standstill. In Eeklo, by contrast, new wind turbines go up all the time, with 14 of them recently being added. The city produces more green energy than it consumes.

Support from locals is far from being just some sort of Flemish tic, says de Pauw. Locals know that the expansion of wind power benefits everybody in town. "Our offer is simply better."

To demonstrate his approach, he points to two different wind turbines of the exact same model, both of which reach 120 meters into the sky, their rotors gently humming as they turn. "What is the difference between the two?" de Pauw asks, his arm outstretched. He immediately answers his own question: "The one wind turbine only benefits the company to which it belongs. The other is ours, and we pay out 10,000 euros per year from it to the people who live here."

Cheaper and Sustainable

To convince locals of the value of his co-op, he organized a number of town hall meetings over the course of several months to explain the concept and respond to concerns. Ultimately, Ecopower and Eeklo agreed to a joint concept: For each wind turbine, the operators pay 5,000 euros into a local fund for climate protection each year and the same amount into a community fund for other needs. In addition, Ecopower has agreed to finance an engineer for the city for 20 years, whose job it is to help the town shift to renewable energy sources and develop a district heating system. That engineer is de Pauw himself.

Overall, the co-op isn’t particularly expensive, and it benefits the community. In recent years, electricity from Ecopower was only slightly cheaper than that from conventional providers. It was a model for sustainability, not necessarily for saving significant amounts of money. But ever since electricity prices have skyrocketed as a result of the war in Ukraine and other factors, it has been both. Whereas the large providers have tripled their prices in some cases, the co-op has only made slight increases to cover infrastructure and management costs. The basic price of electricity from their wind turbines, by contrast, only has to cover construction and maintenance costs. It remains constant for 20 years.

Bob D’Haeseleer, who was deputy mayor of Eeklo when Ecopower was set up, closely followed the co-op’s development for nearly 10 years. "Ecopower was a godsend for our community," he says. "It saved us from a number of destructive debates and brought more revenues to the city than a conventional provider." He says the city council vote to participate in the deal with the co-op and expand wind power was unanimous.

More recently, though, the mood in Eeklo has soured somewhat. Farmers are fighting about who is allowed to sell property to wind turbine operators. The district heating network, which was to become part of the co-op and be built with the corporation Veolia, hasn’t come to fruition. And the electricity providers who won the concession for the wind park along with Ecopower aren’t paying into the local fund as promised, says D’Haeseleer. Still, even though Eeklo has run into some problems, the concept of energy co-ops is gaining in popularity elsewhere in Europe.

Since 2019, the European Commission has been seeking to expand energy co-ops into an additional pillar of the European electricity supply. And the arguments in Brussels are the same as those in Eeklo: greater local support and participation and a more responsible approach to energy.

Heading Offshore

Ecopower is now setting up a European association of comparable organizations, with their number having multiplied in recent years. In countries like Spain, Britain and Germany, people are joining forces in organizations to produce energy. In addition to pure co-ops, there is also an increasing number of FinCoops, energy companies that customers can invest in to earn dividends.

"Despite the successes, we need to stay realistic," says de Pauw. "We're an additional pillar. A very important one, but for now, we cannot and do not want to take over the entire energy market." Currently co-ops are supplying only 2 percent of households in Belgium. That share, though, is almost certain to rise in coming years, with the participation of co-ops in new projects now legally mandated.

In a model European Union project, 100 needy families are currently receiving co-op shares instead of cost subsidies. Ecopower customers, says de Pauw, are twice as thrifty as other power consumers, so involving needy families in co-ops could facilitate the exchange of tips and ideas for awareness when it comes to energy consumption.

But the biggest upcoming project is elsewhere. Together with 32 other Belgian co-ops, Ecopower is planning to build an offshore wind park off the coast of Belgium. The plan calls for 240 wind turbines producing 15 megawatts of electricity each, eight times more powerful than the facilities in Eeklo. The call for tender is currently underway. The co-ops are to pool 450 million euros in a consortium. Should the plan ever become reality, the park would produce enough electricity for 800,000 households.

For Bernadette Vandercammen, though, other elements of the energy co-op are more important. "It is important to me that the profits stay here in Eeklo," she says.

 *THIS PIECE IS PART OF THE GLOBAL SOCIETIES SERIES. THE PROJECT RUNS FOR THREE YEARS AND IS FUNDED BY THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION.