“Power from next door”

Several German companies plan to provide customers with transparency on the exact geographical origin of the energy they purchase, writes Ralph Diermann on Spiegel Online. If consumers know their energy comes from the wind turbine next door and not from a faraway coal plant, “they are more likely to accept further expansion of renewables”, Christian Chudoba, co-founder of the start-up Lumenaza, told Spiegel Online. The company, partly funded by utility EnBW, links small-scale producers like energy cooperatives and municipal utilities to consumers in the same region. Like competitors LichtBlick or Grünstromwerk, Lumenaza is likely to benefit from the reform of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG), which by 2017 will allow producers to market regionally generated power as so-called “green electricity” and also to indicate the individual wind farm or solar park it where it was produced.

Read the article in German here.

For detailed information on the future legal framework for renewables in Germany, read the CLEW dossier The reform of the Renewable Energy Act.

See the CLEW dossier The People's Energiewende for more information on regionally produced power.