The roles of energy cooperatives on sustainable development and European Union experience

It is said that needs may be considered the mother of invention. Cooperatives have historically emerged out of the need to provide goods and services not available from the public sector and conventional businesses. In this case, it can be concluded that energy cooperatives are established due to the fact that the government and private sector can not provide fully this need as a result of the increasing in energy demand. In this study, the roles of energy cooperatives on sustainable development and European Union experience is carried out. Research on different indicators, the economic and other supports provided to energy cooperatives in Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, England and Belgium are compared, it is evaluated their contributions to sustainable development on regional and national basis. Also, it is addressed about National Rural Electric Cooperative Association achieved successes worldwide and maturation time from establishment to the present, energy cooperatives experiences in some countries are given as examples. Besides, energy cooperatives have many social benefits as well as economic benefits. According to the result of study, energy cooperatives have recently been to play an important role in the realization of local and sustainable development. It decreases the dependence on foreign sources in energy by supplying the needs of countries with local energy production. Namely, energy cooperatives have an important status in terms of social benefits because they create employment, wages and commercial income and particularly create local pride for undeveloped regions. In terms of sustainable development, energy cooperatives provide to be improved corporate responsibility and sensitivity in public, civil and private sector. As a result, energy cooperatives contribute to economic and technological improvement and consisting social consciousness within the framework of sustainability.