Crete, the largest Greek island, attracts about 20% of the total Greek tourist activity and hosts more than 50% of all renewable energy projects situated in the Hellenic island territories. In this article, we probe the comparatively successful promotion of renewable energy applications among Cretan municipalities by identification of key components and drivers of local dynamics which facilitate the development of such innovative and collective projects. We then refer to a theoretical economic grid highlighting the strength of local factors (i.e. social and institutional forces) in co-ordination mechanisms. We conclude that for the case of Crete, both internal factors (such as local acceptance) and external elements (such as macrostructure) play a core role in successful implementation of renewable energy, and from this we propose a number of facilitating conditions which could help promote renewable energy production on other islands. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.