“Energy communities aren’t a new idea – they’ve existed for over 140 years. From the first farmer cooperatives in the US to today’s blockchain-based & AI-driven P2P platforms, citizens have always sought ways to control their energy and cut costs. In this blog, we journey through time to explore how energy communities evolved and what the future holds.
The first electric cooperative was founded in the USA in 1887 – farmers banded together to get electricity, shortly after Thomas Edison patented the first long-lasting and practical light bulb. Its mass use in households began in the late 19th century.
That first electric cooperative was founded in Telluride, Colorado, USA (Telluride Electric Light Company) and enabled farmers and locals to jointly finance and use electricity, but on a very small scale, mainly for lighting.
The beginnings in the world, during the 1890s, brought pioneering ventures that took place in rural parts of Denmark and North America, where groups of farmers and the local population built small wind turbines and hydroelectric plants for their own needs. In 1891, the Danish inventor Poul la Cour constructed one of the first wind turbines that produced electricity, which led to the fact that already in 1918, farms in Denmark were independently producing electricity.
The mass emergence of electrical cooperatives happened in the 1930s, after the establishment of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA – USA), enabling farmers to jointly build and maintain electrical networks.
These early examples proved that local collaboration could solve global problems – like energy shortages in rural areas.
Furthermore, throughout Europe during the 1930s, many hydroelectric plants in Switzerland and Scandinavia were frequently owned by local communities, towns, or cooperatives, especially in rural and mountainous areas where decentralised energy generation was more practical. This matched general trends in European energy governance at the time, when local ownership was widespread prior to the advent of huge, state-controlled utilities.
In our next blog post, we will continue our journey from the end of the 19th century to today, exploring the fascinating history of energy communities. Until then, we invite you to explore the energy communities and pilots of the INTELLIGENT project at this link.
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Featured Image by Robin Roberts on Pixabay.
