A pioneering alliance: a new inter-municipal energy community is born!

Six municipalities in Styria, Austria are taking on a pioneering role in the field of energy communities with the establishment of the Renewable Energy Community GU Süd eGen cooperative. The establishment of the energy community sends a strong signal to regional development actors that municipalities can pull together and become active players and shapers in the energy market on behalf of their citizens.

The new alliance was announced in a press conference held in Fernitz-Mellach municipality earlier in August. “‘With the joint energy community, we have taken an important step in regional co-operation. Through the cooperative, we can not only produce electricity together, but also utilise it and save costs. For us this is an important contribution to energy sovereignty and to strengthening social cohesion,” said Mayor Robert Tulnik, one of the main drivers of the project.

The six municipalities in the south of Graz Fernitz-Mellach, Gössendorf, Hart bei Graz, Hausmannstätten, Raaba-Grambach and Vasoldsberg have been working intensively since 2023 on creating a cross-municipal energy community. The founding of the energy cooperative was preceded by a phase of around one year of data collection, evaluation and exploratory work. In addition to analysing the technical requirements, the potential of existing generation plants, operational and legal opportunities for a roll-out across all six municipalities had to be clarified. The municipalities received expert support from the companies such as So-strom, a partner in ENERGY4ALL. Congratulations to the new energy community, which will one of the six pilots of ENERGY4ALL.

The press release in German is available here.