OURPOWER ENERGIEGENOSSENSCHAFT SCE MIT BESCHRANKTER HAFTUNG

Their core work

OurPower is a Vienna-based energy cooperative (Genossenschaft) that organises citizens and local communities around shared energy production, consumption, and governance. Their real-world work centres on building and running energy communities — groups of households and small businesses that collectively manage renewable energy assets, share electricity locally, and act as prosumers rather than passive consumers. In EU projects they bring direct practitioner experience: they know how to recruit and mobilise community members, communicate the value of collective energy action, and aggregate dispersed demand. Their contribution to research consortia is ground-level implementation knowledge and access to a real community of energy citizens in Austria.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their participation spans only 2020–2021 project starts, so the timeline is short, but there is a readable shift. The earlier project (DECIDE) approached energy communities through an analytical lens — social science, aggregation mechanics, and understanding collective action. The later project (SHAREs) moved toward practical outreach and empowerment — prosumers, 'local heroes' as community champions, and communication campaigns designed for broad audiences. The trajectory points from study toward implementation: they are growing into a practitioner organisation that turns community energy theory into real participation.

OurPower is moving away from analysis toward active community mobilisation and public communication, making them increasingly valuable as an implementation partner rather than a research contributor in future energy transition projects.

How they like to work

OurPower has participated in two projects without ever taking a coordinating role, which fits their profile as a practitioner organisation embedded in larger policy or research consortia. Both projects are Coordination and Support Actions (CSA), meaning they join networks designed to spread knowledge and mobilise communities rather than conduct primary research. With 22 unique partners across 9 countries from just two participations, they operate within mid-to-large European consortia and bring community-level access that academic or industrial partners cannot replicate.

OurPower has built a network of 22 unique consortium partners across 9 countries despite only two projects — a broad footprint for an organisation of this size. Their partners are likely a mix of universities, NGOs, municipalities, and energy agencies typical of CSA-type consortia focused on citizen energy.

What sets them apart

OurPower is an actual operating energy cooperative, not a consultancy or research institute — they are the thing that EU energy community projects aim to create or scale. This gives them rare legitimacy as a living proof-of-concept: when a consortium needs a real community energy organisation to test tools, host pilots, or validate outreach strategies with actual members, OurPower fills that role. For Austrian or DACH-focused projects in particular, they provide grounded local access that most academic partners lack.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SHAREs
  Their largest funding award (€228,302) and the project where their practitioner identity is most visible — 'Simple and Smart Energy Communities for All' positions OurPower as a replication and communication partner for scaling community energy across Europe.
• DECIDE
  Their first H2020 participation, combining social science with collective action research to understand how energy communities form — shows the analytical foundation beneath their community-building work.