Scope of influence of municipalities in the structuring of the energy economy. An investigation of communal and non-communal power supply strategies, based on the examples of towns and communities in the supply district of the Vereinigte Elektrizitaetswerke Westfalen AG (VEW)

The purpose of the present paper is to study for the example of the Vereinigte Elektrizitaetswerke Westfalen (VEW) the question as to the extent to which municipalities as major shareholders of semi-public power supply companies are in a position to exert an influence on the business policy of such a company. A further objective is to determine whether VEW is in fact, as its management and supervisory board publicly assert, a municipal undertaking. Furthermore, the paper queries the legitimacy defended by representatives of the regional economy and interconnected power supply companies of adhering to and further developing concentrating, centralised structures of power supply even in the face of changed energy, environmental, and climate-political conditions. In this context it points out the scope of municipalities for making use of cogeneration as a contribution to an efficient energy supply and what obstacles there are to implementing this. Beyond this, it examines for the example of the VEW supply area how many towns and municipalities have returned or are planning to return the responsibility for the local power supply to the municipalities, under what conditions such initiatives came about, and what concrete obstacles had or have still to be overcome. In this connection the question is dealt with as to the criteria on which VEW bases its coice of a local power supply system and the extent to which these include holistic economic criteria. (orig./UA)