Energy communities are often regarded as one of the most promising developments linked to the energy transition – and for good reasons. REScoop.eu, the European federation of energy communities, describes them as a “way to ‘organise’ citizens that want to cooperate together in an energy-sector related activity based on open and democratic participation and governance, so that the activity can provide services or other benefits to the members or the local community”. This covers a wide range of organisations and endeavours, with very different sizes and ways of producing energy, from solar and hydro to wind and biomass. Common features include self-organised, decentralised energy production, a focus on renewables, and – unfortunately – a persisting underrepresentation of women. Studies show that over 70 per cent of members of electricity energy communities and more than 83 per cent of boards are male.

It might seem nitpicky to discuss gender dynamics in the context of the energy transition in general, and even more so in the microcosm of energy communities, which are only just establishing themselves in most EU member states. However, gender remains a useful lens for describing the experience of more than half of the population and looking at political phenomena, including energy politics.

Moreover, energy communities are interesting laboratories as they take on the energy transition from the ground up, close to people’s daily lives. The structures and dynamics present in such settings can both reflect and shape the direction of change.

A political transition

Our current energy systems impact women more negatively than men. This begins with the extraction of fossil fuels, which puts Indigenous women and two spirit people -at increased risk of (sexual) violence. These groups also suffer more from the immediate effects of fossil fuel consumption, such as pollution from cooking. The longer-term effects of climate change have also been documented to be gender-biased: women face more health hazards, are at a higher risk during climate disasters, and so on.

The energy industry employs fewer women and pays them less, and also exacerbates their (energy) poverty. Similarly, energy governance has been male-dominated in the past, at both national and European levels. Simply put, the current energy systems are not working out for women in so many ways, and energy communities have yet to break free from this dynamic. Therefore, gender needs to be taken into account for energy justice, along with intersectional experiences of inequality and oppression, which also include class, sexuality, ethnicity, and age. Yet, as researcher Barbara Nicoloso has shown, the political side of the energy transition has not received enough attention.

Energy politics are sensitive to politics at large and vested political interests. The backlash against the European Green Deal aims to slow down the energy transition – even as studies, again and again, refute the claim that voters oppose climate measures. At the same time, the geopolitical stakes connected to the dependence on fossil fuels have been crystal clear since the invasion of Ukraine, with high energy prices escalating energy poverty in Europe. In the years following the invasion, the EU has managed to diversify its energy supply (albeit at times with painful trade-offs), but renewables are being vilified by the far right. In Germany, for instance, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has often criticised wind power and advocated resuming cheap fossil imports from Russia.

Energy politics reflect the structures and priorities of the societies in which they are created. This means that an underrepresentation of women in a niche subset of engaged energy prosumers is not a coincidence but a product of politics. It is a warning signal that the energy transition, if treated as a way of plugging out from one system into a new one, even by supporters of renewables, will carry over counterproductive and unfair blind spots.

Levelling the field

Energy communities represent a microcosm of the broader questions that progressives and greens are wrangling with across Europe. Can the energy transition be truly participatory? How can it be accelerated and its scope widened? The social and political dynamics are at least as important as the technical considerations.

Given that energy communities are most of the time founded and kept alive only by volunteers, having more members means more engagement, resources, and, ultimately, more momentum. While energy communities originated from an ambitious movement for the energy transition, currently, they often remain limited to a largely homogenous group of highly educated, high-income men.

If energy communities can get better at increasing the number of women among their members, the decentralised energy transition picks up speed. What can be done to create a positive feedback loop between women’s participation in energy communities, gender equality, and the energy transition?

The case of German energy communities is particularly interesting because Germany is the country with the most energy communities in the EU, and has a long history of bottom-up activism and political turbulence related to the energy transition.

According to Lara Track, project manager at Netzwerk Energiewende Jetzt e.V., an organisation which supports energy communities, the connection between the fight for gender equality and the energy transition is impossible to ignore, even if it has been overlooked for too long.

Women, lesbians, andintersex, nonbinary, trans, and a-gender individuals (sometimes referred to in German by the acronym FLINTA) are much less represented in energy communities, but also in the energy transition as a whole. Track, who has worked extensively on the role of FLINTA in the energy transition, says it is essential to increase their Teilhabe, their “having a stake”, which is more than just participation (Teilnahme).

Focusing on participation alone as a vehicle for gender equality and representation has proven vulnerable to tokenism and oversimplification. By contrast, having a stake (through taking ownership of a project, by serving on the board or simply being part of a community) means having a voice and, ultimately, power. This stronger type of participation usually comes more easily to affluent people, homeowners, and cis men as they have more opportunities to participate, explains Track. Those who want to mainstream gender into energy communities have to swim against the tide in their struggle for representation, inclusion, and power. According to Track, while gender is often an important topic, energy communities might end up prioritising other areas and fail to create structures for participation.

Having a stake means having a voice and, ultimately, power.

Kiara Groneweg, who works on energy at Women Engage for a Common Future (a nonprofit network working on the gender-climate nexus), agrees with Track that merely symbolic participation and representation risks reinforcing the status quo rather than bringing about transformative change and stronger equality.

As an example, Groneweg mentions Katherina Reiche, the current energy minister and former CEO of a subsidiary of the energy giant E.ON, as an example for women using their positions of power to pre-empt structural change. Reiche, has proposed restrictions on the rollout of renewables, such as requiring them to pay for grid extension and limiting compensation for feeding electricity back into the grid. Former Green state secretary Sven Giegold criticised these proposals as an attempt to stall decentralised renewable production.

Still, Groneweg acknowledges that when it comes to representation in energy communities, “women attract women and FLINTA attract FLINTA.” She continues: “If you have a male board with a very high speaking time, some FLINTAs are just not going to be interested in entering and discussing, because the structure does not fit from the get-go.” The attraction that comes with increased representation is crucial to breaking open male-dominated structures. As Track puts it, “people like to work together with people with whom they can feel a connection relatively easily.”

However, socio-economic inequalities stand in the way of increasing representation, says Groneweg. For her, the discussion on a socially just energy transition also needs to be clear-eyed about unequal access to capital, housing, and property. This access is limited in Germany, where more than half of the population lives in rental properties and one in five people is at risk of poverty or social exclusion – and the figure doubles for single-parent households.

These numbers are deeply gendered. Women represent the vast majority (85 per cent) of single-parent households, earn 16 per cent less, and have much lower pensions than men on average.

With 75 per cent of European housing stock classified as energy inefficient, the heating transition is the soft underbelly of the energy transition. Groneweg stressed that for heating, individual solutions are practically insufficient, especially for the 53 per cent of people in Germany who rent. Since renovations and retrofitting with heat pumps have been highly politically inflammatory in Germany, these larger structural solutions are unaddressed, leaving the populations who suffer as a result to compensate for high energy costs on their own.

Competitive mentality

When Marina Braun – an engineer and founder and board member of several energy communities – decided to get involved in the sector, she considered being the first woman to join a male-only energy community. She even knew some of the men sitting on the board, which made things easier. Eventually, however, she decided to devote her efforts to a younger, more diverse energy community.

“I realised that their drive was somehow completely different,” she recalls. “There were women involved, too. I had this gut feeling that I would feel more comfortable than in the other energy community because they were actively looking for women. I thought that maybe there would not be that ‘elbow mentality’ – and well, that was kind of a deciding factor for me.”

Kerstin Lopau, engineer and co-founder of SoLocal Energy, had a negative experience in male-dominated energy communities, where she faced a lack of conversational generosity and a competitive mindset – the “elbow mentality” also mentioned by Braun. A more pleasant culture of communication, in her experience, also leads to greater productivity and a cooperative approach to solving problems.

Like Track and Groneweg, Lopau believes that representation is no miracle cure for gender equality. For example, sitting on the board of a company – a structure that is often quite hierarchical and conformist – can lead women to follow male ideals and lose solidarity with other women. In energy communities, however, the picture is a bit different according to Lopau: boards tend to be more democratic, with various mechanisms to ensure control and transparency, which prevents alienation and loss of solidarity. 

Cultivating the field

German energy communities are often Genossenschaften (“cooperatives”) which encompass a specific ethos, legal status, and structure. These organisations aim to help their members pursue their own economic, social, or cultural goals through joint operations. They traditionally follow the principles of self-help, self-responsibility, and self-management.

In her work, Track has observed that energy communities can spark conversations around new, sustainable ways to create and retain value. Energy communities are levers for people to benefit locally from the energy transition, especially those who are currently not benefiting, she notes. In the energy sector, this is crucial. Community energy projects have been shown to generate two to eight times more local revenue than if the project were carried out by an external actor. In Germany, where much of the electricity produced in the east of the country flows westward, aggravating existing imbalances, this local aspect has immense potential.

The discussion on a socially just energy transition also needs to be clear-eyed about unequal access to capital, housing, and property.

Track says it’s surprising that more municipalities don’t make use of energy communities to counter the “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) phenomenon and build local energy democracy. According to Groneweg, however, with the time and volunteer effort it takes to set up energy communities (especially in a country like Germany, bogged down by immense bureaucratic hurdles), energy communities alone should not be held responsible for removing structural barriers and solving broader political problems like energy poverty.

Instead, the energy community movement could join forces with other social movements, such as the feminist and climate communities. “I am hoping for a feminist energy movement fighting to grow decentralised energy systems. Then we would have more people getting engaged. That would mean that in an energy community, which maybe now has around 20 volunteers, suddenly 200 are engaged, and it grows from city to city, or village to village,” says Groneweg.

For Lopau, it is a positive development that solar panels have become a mass product, taking energy generation out of the realm of technology geeks and into the familiar world of the local supermarket. Small photovoltaic modules make it very accessible for renters to create their own solar system on their balconies. For those who consume little or are energy poor, the savings generated from a solar module on a balcony are relatively greater than for those who consume a lot.

Renewables allow for local energy production and are the most democratic and accessible way to provide energy to date. However, these energy sources are still strongly influenced by previous energy systems and their gender dynamics, Lopau notes. She sees renewables as a fertile field that now needs cultivation to realise its full potential, including through the inclusion of FLINTA in energy communities. However, there remain small and big obstacles that energy communities have to overcome to balance their membership.

“Energy communities don’t exist in a vacuum”

The first hurdles potential new members of an energy community face are the up-front and recurring costs associated with membership. Energy communities can pre-empt this by offering solidarity pricing models.

Lopau, who has been active in democratising balcony solar systems, acknowledges that renewables are often not a top priority for those who face (energy) poverty and the mental burden and stress associated with it. She says that energy communities should rely less on the internal motivations of green-minded people. For this to become a reality, potential users should be proactively sought after and supported.

But financial barriers are not the only obstacle to participation. Since energy communities rely on individual and collective efficacy, people who lack self-confidence or experience in civil society or in local collective endeavours, such as sports associations, can face mental barriers and underestimate themselves and their abilities. For Braun, it is important to remind people that energy communities are a collective endeavour. Members will always work with others; no one will be left hanging, and they always follow a 4-to-6-eye principle, she says.

Gender stereotypes also contribute to the underrepresentation of women. Braun, who studied engineering, suggests that the gender gap in STEM fields also has to do with the names of degree programs and the emphasis on technical aspects. Terms like “energy technology” or “renewable technology” tend to foreground the technical elements traditionally associated with masculinity, obscuring the legal, organisational, and social questions linked to renewables.

Braun stresses that gender stereotypes can be challenged. “This is a topic that anyone can learn and understand. You just have to take time for it, like you need time for learning how to knit, paint, and any other skill you want to get better at”.

However, time scarcity also disproportionately affects women. In Germany, women spend 44,3 per cent more time on care work than men, making up an unpaid second shift of 30 hours per week. This work has been estimated to amount to an unpaid 826 billion euros a year, and is the precondition for all paid labour. Without giving and taking care, like teaching children how to speak, solve conflicts or build social relations, other economic activities would simply not be possible. When governments push to extend the work week to increase economic output, they risk reinforcing the gender care gap. They also reduce the time available for democratic engagement and participation. 

These are broader questions that inevitably affect energy communities, which mostly rely on volunteer work. As Track puts it: “Energy communities do not exist in a vacuum. And everything we do structurally to further gender equality is going to benefit gender equality within energy communities.”

Skills that matter

One of the strategies that energy community organisers pursue to attract FLINTA is to highlight that different skills are needed. Communication, administration, legal, or finance skills are essential to build the organisation before any windmill or solar panel field is approved

Braun explains that, especially at the beginning, it is key to have people on board who know how to build an organisation – practically and socially. “Women are simply very good at building organisations structurally, in project management, (they) are very considerate, very empathetic- and that’s what’s essential for an energy community in the end.” Reaching out to people, convincing them, and taking them on board is connected to a set of emotional and social skills (which are in fact skills, and not innate qualities) that women and FLINTA often demonstrate.

Researchers have demonstrated strong evidence for the benefits of working in more diverse teams. One example, brought up by Braun, is increased risk aversion. In her experience, while men tend to take more risks and postpone addressing worst-case scenarios, greater interaction between genders in discussions balances out these tendencies, leading for instance to a more sound risk assessment of what to invest in, for example.

For Lopau, actively pursuing a more diverse membership can also have important domino effects, such as opening new perspectives and opportunities to grow the community, and making the space more welcoming for everyone – including potential new members.

Track mentions the example of a female-led energy community she has worked with: “I find it interesting that when there are two chairwomen, childcare programs are thought of.” She adds: “They are not the only ones, but not everyone is doing it.”

With an eye on the energy transition, which sometimes struggles with community backing and NIMBY, it becomes evident that social and organisational skills – traditionally gendered and devalued – are what determine the impact of an energy community. While from the outside it may seem that lacking technological skills makes participation in energy communities meaningless, in truth, it is social and organisational skills that can grow and scale the movement.

“Don’t listen to the men”    

Kerstin Lopau wants to tackle the underrepresentation of women in energy communities at its roots and do things in a radically different way. In previous years, she hosted a summer camp for young people to learn how to install solar panels. After receiving feedback that some FLINTA did not sign up because they didn’t feel safe, Lopau took action. Ever since, she and her colleagues at SoLocal Energy have been hosting solar camps specifically made for FLINTA. Their approach is to be aware of the gaps, to “always try to look closely at what people need. We know from our own experience working in the field what feels awkward, so we try to figure out what could feel better.”

These solar camps are also meant to be a ladder to future employment for those who would like to pursue this path professionally. Lopau has been strategic about building relationships with the local skilled trade scene in North Hesse. She requested their expertise and knowledge, even when this was not strictly necessary. These collaborations led to some really good contacts. She recalled that the tradespeople “saw on site, ‘okay, alright, they do know what they are doing, and they are competent – and not as bad as we thought. Maybe we can pick up a few trainees and workers here.’ – So it was a bit of a win-win situation.”      

A central pillar of this summer camp is networking, as building relationships between these future energy professionals during the camp has been valuable. It builds the participants’ energy literacy and confidence, letting them show up differently, empowered, in their energy communities or future jobs. Lopau shares that a former summer camp participant emailed her about a technical question. “You said that’s how you have to do it, but the men here say you don’t have to do it like that,” the participant wrote. Lopau answered: “No, don’t listen to the men. You remembered correctly.”

This article is informed by the work of Barbara Nicoloso, whose essay “Gender Power: The energy transition through a gender lens” and policy brief “Gender at the Heart of the EU Energy Transition: Key learnings from the French case” have earlier been published by the Green European Foundation.