As Big Energy Gains, Can Europe’s Community Renewables Compete? Local wind and solar cooperatives have been instrumental in fostering Europe’s renewable energy growth. Now, as multinational corporations play an ever-larger role in efforts to decarbonize Europe’s economy, the EU is looking to bolster these grassroots clean-energy initiatives. In the old medieval market town of Heilbronn, perched on the Neckar River in southwestern Germany, the zeal of the city’s award-winning renewable energy cooperative is on display just about everywhere. In this city of 126,000, solar panels adorn the roofs of homes, kindergartens and schools, municipal buildings, and factory halls. The co-op, founded by 46 anti-nuclear energy activists in 2010, today boasts 1,150 members who collectively own two wind turbines and 48 solar farms, large and small, that spill out across city limits into surrounding towns and villages. The combined output of the co-op and other collectively owned, clean energy sources supplies the electricity for about a third of Heilbronn’s households.