Success Factors for the Foundation of Municipal Utilities in Germany

Oliver Wagner, Kurt Berlo, Christian Herr and Michael Companie
Additional contact information
Oliver Wagner: Research Group Energy, Transport and Climate Policy, Wuppertal Institute, 42103 Wuppertal, Germany
Kurt Berlo: Research Group Energy, Transport and Climate Policy, Wuppertal Institute, 42103 Wuppertal, Germany
Christian Herr: Managing Director of the Municipal Office for Waste Disposal, Street Cleaning and Vehicle Fleet in Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany
Michael Companie: Manager at Plenum AG BLUBERRIES GmbH, 81541 Munich, Germany

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: More than 150 municipal utilities (so-called Stadtwerke) were established in Germany from the beginning of the millennium, bringing the total number of Stadtwerke currently established within the country to approximately 900. With responsibility for more than half of the supply of electricity, gas and heat in Germany, these Stadtwerke play a central role in the transformation of the energy sector, or Energiewende. In addition, due to their local and regional ties, Stadtwerke have a particular role to play in energy politics, the economy and across society. This article focuses on the motives behind, and grounds for, the current wave of newly established Stadtwerke. Further, it discusses the factors that were critical to the successful formation of new Stadtwerke in recent years. The results of our survey indicate that the establishment of municipal Stadtwerke is a suitable measure to implement the energy transition at the local level, whereby the concept of public value has a high level of importance for the local decision-makers. Collaboration and cooperation, as well as a resilience-oriented strategy, are important success factors for new Stadtwerke.

Keywords: municipal utilities; Stadtwerke; energy transition; public value; performance measurement; performance indicators; resilience; digitalisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/4/981/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/4/981/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:4:p:981-:d:498631

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().