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We investigate conflict handling in Renewable Energy Cooperatives (RECs) in Germany. Conflict handling in this context shows to be unique due to RECs' business model and the relationship between members and their organization. Unlike in other cooperative firms, most REC members in Germany neither work for their cooperative nor do they receive goods or services from it. We document frequent controversial topics of discussion in annual meetings and how the organizational frame conditions influence modes of conflict handling by the involved parties. Using data gathered by participant observation of the annual meetings of 15 different RECs in southern Germany, we show by a qualitative approach that conflict handling by members of the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board and the rank-and-file during the process of decision-making ranges from highly cooperative to fully Competitive, but these styles tend to converge to collaborative outcomes, reflecting the members' shared commitment to the cooperative principles of the enterprise.The authors would like to thank Judith Rognli for her invaluable help gathering data and fruitful discussions, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Background: Landscape maintenance in Germany today requires regular and extensive de-weeding of waterways, mostly to ensure water runoff and provide flood protection. The costs for this maintenance are high, and the harvested biomass goes to waste. Methods: We evaluated the economic feasibility of using water plant biomass as a substrate in biogas generation. We set up a plausible supply chain, used it to calculate the costs of using aquatic water biomass as a seasonal feedstock to generate biogas, and compared it against maize silage, a standard biogas substrate. We also calculated the costs of using the aquatic biomass mixed with straw silage.