This book systematically describes and evaluates the impact of energy cooperatives as a key driving force in the German energy transition toward a sustainability-oriented energy sector. Based on a comprehensive survey and three case studies, it provides an instructive overview of the overall dimensions and scope of energy cooperatives in Germany, and of their history, structure and current investment projects. The book not only contributes to the energy policy discourse in Germany, but also highlights the role of energy cooperatives to enable an international readership to explore their potential in other countries. Further, it makes a theoretical contribution toward substantially supplementing actor research in general, and enterprise research in particular, in the field of sustainability transitions science.

Sarah Debor focusses her research on the German energy transition, business models, innovative grassroots pioneers and energy cooperatives. She successfully completed the PhD program in business and economics at the Schumpeter School of the University of Wuppertal, Germany in 2017. For the time of her PhD, she was researcher at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy GmbH, Germany as well as part of the Science Cluster on the Great Transformation of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

Introduction.- Energy Cooperatives: A 'New' Phenomenon in Germany.- Germany's Energiewende.- Organisations in the Context of Socio-Technical Transitions.- Research Design and Methods.- German Energy Cooperatives: A Rising Cosmopolitan Enterprise Community.- Analysis of Dominant Collaborative Interaction Models.- Discussion of Results.- Conclusions and Outlook.