I have done a couple of posts recently on the state of the...

I have done a couple of posts recently on the state of the German electricity market: The financial stress of the old school generators such as RWE and Eon; the growth of new sources of generation; and my conjecture that electricity may once again become the concern, as in the past, of regions, cities and towns rather than transnational behemoths.

An article in yesterdays ‘The Guardian’ (free of course) concerns a rather low level, ‘crowd funding’ style initiative in Berlin to buy back their little bit of the national grid when it come up for sale next year. To date the ‘Citizen Energy Berlin’ movement has signed up around a thousand members full of support, but nowhere near the cash likely for such an undertaking. However, the Germans would love this initiative given the enthusiasm with which they have taken to alternate generation. Around 40% of Germany's renewable energy is generated by small-scale producers. So why not a small local distribution operation for the German capital City State. The economic rationalists and sundry rent seekers will of course mock the idea. But the pragmatic Germans can be very colloquial about the independence of their Federated States.

What’s this all mean. Do the busted-arse old school generators have the cash and incentive to invest heavily in distributed generation in their network? Or are the chances that new, smaller and financially unburdened authorities, thinking and planning locally, would be more inclined to take the 40% renewables up to 100% with a BlueGen on every street corner?

See the article I referred to at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/berliners-co-op-aims-run-electricity