"Let's do it ourselves" : individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level

The paper analyses individual motivations for partaking in local renewable projects and generating energy jointly in an investment community. To do so, we applied a socio-psychological approach for studying renewable energy communities in Germany and the Netherlands. Our results show that mainly gain and normative considerations played a role in the decision, but in the background hedonic motivations were also present. Although, these considerations were driven mostly from the individual’s perspective we also found group motivations, such as strengthening the local community and improving the neighborhood’s condition. Each of the groups examined were formed in already existing strong communities, where trust was relatively high, which seems to be an important condition for the realization of local energy projects. Consequently, we argue that tailor-made incentives addressing the dominant motivations can help the most effectively the operation and spread of renewable energy communities.