ElektrizitätsWerke Schönau (EWS), a community-owned energy cooperative, was founded through extensive community engagement and mobilization over many years.
Starting around 1986, after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a group of local citizens from Schönau, a small town in south Germany, created a group called "Parents for a nuclear-free future". Initially
Over the next 10 years, this local action group raised funds, galvanized action from Schönau’s 2,500 citizens, mobilized local momentum and awareness, took the incumbent distribution company to court and won two local referendums. Eventually in 1995, they gained the legal right for EWS to operate the local grid.
With the liberalization of the electricity market in 1998, EWS started to provide electricity nationwide. Since then, the group’s vision has grown broader and EWS not only wants to create a fair and just, sustainable energy supply system, free from nuclear power, but it also actively encourages people to take action and advance the participation of individuals and community in the clean energy distribution in Germany and beyond.
More info @ http://www.comets-project.eu/images/deliverables/COMETS_D51_Frontier_CAIs_Report.pdf
