Community ownership of 7.8 MW solar farm

At the beginning of the month, the largest solar project in Baden-Württemberg was connected to the grid. Its ownership structure is typical of such projects in Germany – and could serve as an example abroad.

Since last fall, solar arrays larger than 10 megawatts have no longer been eligible for feed-in tariffs in Germany, so a 7.8 MW facility is quite big now. But while there are much larger solar farms in Germany and worldwide, those outside of Germany are generally owned by a single company, whereas ownership is splintered in Germany.

Often, the approach is to get roughly a third of a project's budget from local residents, who purchased shares. This funding then counts as equity when a project asks for a bank loan. The interest on the bank loan may be only 4.5 percent, but a project will offer up to six percent to local residents. One would therefore expect project developers to prefer to get the largest possible bank loan and the lowest possible share of equity from locals.

The opposite is often the case, however. One obvious reason is an attempt to overcome NIMBYism. At the new Vogtsburg solar farm (not far from Wyhl, where the energy transition movement got started in Germany in the 1970s), local citizenry owned 75 percent of the project, with the developer only controlling 25 percent. Locals were able to buy shares in the project for 1,000 euros apiece.

The project was spread across nearly 14 hectares, but attention was paid to the environmental impact. The solar farm is installed near the Rhine on waterlogged soil that is of limited value agriculturally. A generous corridor for wild animals was also created, and the fence surrounding the park has a gap at the bottom to let through small animals. (Craig Morris)