This German village makes more green power than it needs, says its mayor

Green energy in abundance, and not in some far-off future: in Bakum, a village in Lower Saxony, it is already happening.

The village produces more renewable electricity than it needs. Mayor Tobias Averbeck, who belongs to the CDU (Germany's centre-right conservative party), says that isn't nearly as hard as many people think.

He even tells a story that sounds almost too good to be true: at one point, electricity was simply given away in Bakum. For a country that spends so much time arguing about energy prices, that is quite a detail.

Averbeck also has a message for the federal government. He says what he would like to see from Berlin so that other towns and villages can follow Bakum's example.

The bigger point is simple. The energy transition (Germany's shift to renewable power) is often discussed as a huge national puzzle. In Bakum, it looks more like a local project that a village can pull off, if the conditions allow it.