Energy cooperatives are a prominent and common form of community energy. Community energy has the potential to increase actor diversity and local acceptance of renewable energies and has therefore been highlighted to be conducive to energy transitions. While research has recognized the importance of both the national and the local governance levels for community energy, it remains unclear how these two levels are related. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates how municipalities support energy cooperatives at the local level and how this support is related to national context conditions. The study takes a quantitative approach using own survey data from Germany and Switzerland. Based on a typology of municipal support, we compare limiting factors and municipal support for energy cooperatives between the two countries as well as between energy cooperatives with and without municipal membership. By means of this two-tiered comparison, we analyze how municipal support is related to national contexts, specifically regarding national energy policies, and to municipal involvement in the cooperatives. Our analysis shows that municipal support can benefit energy cooperatives as it addresses some of the major limiting factors for energy cooperatives in Germany and Switzerland. However, our data suggest that municipalities only specifically address cooperatives’ limitations with support measures if they are a member in the cooperative. This indicates that organizational involvement of a municipality in energy cooperatives leads to a more targeted support compared to non-members and thus is beneficial to meet the specific cooperatives’ challenges due to national energy policy. Cooperatives can benefit from municipal support, especially if the municipality is a cooperative member. Municipal support is likely to become even more important for energy cooperatives in the future, due to reduced national support for renewable energies in Germany and Switzerland. On their part, municipalities can benefit from collaborating with energy cooperatives, as they gain an additional instrument to implement municipal energy policy. Hence, supporting and seeking membership in energy cooperatives appear to be adequate strategies for municipalities to foster a decentralized energy transition.

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市政当局如何支持能源合作社：德国和瑞士的调查结果

能源合作社是一种突出且常见的社区能源形式。社区能源有可能增加参与者的多样性和当地对可再生能源的接受度，因此被强调有利于能源转型。虽然研究已经认识到国家和地方治理层面对社区能源的重要性，但仍不清楚这两个层面如何相关。在此背景下，本文研究了市政当局如何支持地方层面的能源合作社，以及这种支持如何与国情相关。该研究使用来自德国和瑞士的自己的调查数据采用定量方法。基于市政支持的类型学，我们比较了两国之间以及有和没有市政成员的能源合作社之间对能源合作社的限制因素和市政支持。通过这种两层比较，我们分析了市政支持如何与国家环境相关，特别是与国家能源政策以及市政参与合作社的关系。我们的分析表明，市政支持可以使能源合作社受益，因为它解决了德国和瑞士能源合作社的一些主要限制因素。然而，我们的数据表明，如果市政当局是合作社的成员，只有通过支持措施专门解决合作社的局限性。这表明，与非成员相比，市政当局在能源合作社中的组织参与导致更有针对性的支持，因此有利于应对特定合作社因国家能源政策而面临的挑战。合作社可以从市政支持中受益，特别是如果市政当局是合作社成员。由于德国和瑞士国家对可再生能源的支持减少，未来市政支持可能对能源合作社变得更加重要。就市政当局而言，他们可以从与能源合作社的合作中受益，因为他们获得了实施市政能源政策的额外工具。因此，支持和寻求加入能源合作社似乎是市政当局促进分散式能源转型的适当策略。