Enhancing innovation activities in the transition process towards renewable energy municipalities

Municipalities are more and more facing economic and technological challenges to prepare themselves and their regions to be supplied completely or to a high degree with renewable energy. Thus, municipalities seek for opportunities to stimulate activities that contribute to this transition process. The main goal of this research is to identify factors that enhance innovation activities in municipalities for the renewable energy transition process. To accomplish this aim we conducted a municipality survey in spring 2012. The survey covered all municipalities in Germany with more than 1000 inhabitants. The overall results of our study demonstrate that a combination of the resource pool and willingness to cooperate drives the transition process in terms of innovation activities in municipalities. Further regional learning mediates this relation. Our findings contribute to the literature by clarifying the factors in municipal projects that positively relate to innovation activities of municipalities in the transition process towards renewable energy.