After the Free Voters and the FÜR Karlsruhe municipal group, the CDU municipal group is now also demanding citizen energy cooperatives for Karlsruhe.

“We welcome the fact that the CDU is dedicating itself to our topic of citizens’ energy cooperatives, which has been brought up again and again in recent years,” said parliamentary group leader Friedemann Kalmbach from the FW|FÜR Karlsruhe municipal group. The topic is now slowly reaching the municipal council, according to the parliamentary group, with the hope that movement will now begin. “In the past, the administration and the public utility company didn’t seem able to do much here,” explains Kalmbach, “hopefully that will change with the support of another parliamentary group”.

As early as 2019, the Free Voters and FÜR Karlsruhe applied for the funding of citizen energy cooperatives in connection with the solar offensive. The supplementary application was answered very cautiously by the administration and referred to the Committee on Environment and Health for further consultation. City Councilor Fahringer (Greens) was very critical of the prioritization of the provision of space in the 2019 municipal council debate – a vote would have decided against this point. City Councilor Bimmerle (Die Linke) welcomed the addition and his parliamentary group called for citizen energy cooperatives. In 2021, the Free Voters and FÜR Karlsruhe called for the photovoltaic system at the Badisches Staatstheater to be awarded to a citizen energy cooperative in order to strengthen identification with the project.