Hamburg, Germany

(2013 – ongoing)

In September 2013, 51% of the electorate voted to “re-municipalise” the city’s electricity and district heating networks, prompting the buy-back of crucial infrastructure by the city’s senate.

The city’s senate has seen good profits from the public ownership of energy infrastructure since 2017, and minority political parties within the city have seen that with the grid in public hands they can propose initiatives which would otherwise have been unthinkable – including turning Hamburg’s inland port into a space to experiment with renewable energy schemes.