German energy policy and the way to sustainability: Five controversial issues in the debate on the “Energiewende”

Fischer, Wolfgang; Hake, Jürgen‐Friedrich; Kuckshinrichs, Wilhelm; Schröder, Thomas; Venghaus, Sandra

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2016.05.069

Cited by 71 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…It showed that it was unclear whether renewable energy produced by the cities would be consumed by their own end-users (F: 25). Fischer et al argued that there is a competition for renewable generation rates at subnational levels [108]. In addition, this study identified an aversion to change supply contracts (F: 1, 7, 25), a phenomenon that was also observed by Fuchs and Hinderer [54].…”

Section: F3supporting

confidence: 53%

“…It has been delayed in Germany [106], and in the case of Lower Saxony, 287 manufacturers were granted a reduced renewable energy surcharge in 2015 [107]. Several authors, e.g., Gawel et al or Fischer et al, have criticized the numerous "exceptions for industry" [24] in terms of social justice or fair competition [24,108]. This study illustrated that such exceptions may restrict the collaboration in public transition activities.…”

Section: F3mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A new approach to semantic sustainability assessment: text mining via network analysis revealing transition patterns in German municipal climate action plans

Bickel

2017

Energ Sustain Soc

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Background: Various monitoring approaches have shown that urban areas and their energy systems are major contributors to climate change. Corresponding observations have mostly been based on physical data. However, text data is an untapped source of information that can be analyzed by text mining methods. Taking the example of the German Energy Transition, an interpretation network analysis was used to assess local transition patterns in 16 municipal climate action plans of regional centers in the State of Lower Saxony. Based on the holistic concept of social-ecological systems, three analytical perspectives were introduced, the social system, the energy system, and the three principles of strong sustainability, which inspired three questions: What is the "horizon of attention" regarding the stages of the energy system? What potential, in terms of coordination or collaboration, can be identified on basis of network links between societal sub-systems and the energy system? Are strong sustainability principles adequately linked to the energy system to support a transition towards sustainability? Methods: A computer-aided interpretation network analysis was used. The (co-)occurrence of indicative words representing pre-defined categories was checked in the measures proposed in the plans to analyze the importance and connectedness of these categories. For this purpose, three thesauri were created as fixed literature-based categorization schemes.

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Section: F3supporting

confidence: 53%

Section: F3mentioning

confidence: 99%

A new approach to semantic sustainability assessment: text mining via network analysis revealing transition patterns in German municipal climate action plans

Bickel

2017

Energ Sustain Soc

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“…With their ongoing energy transition to RES, Germany provides a particularly good use case to analyse these questions [26]. According to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act ("Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz", EEG), the RES share of gross electricity generation shall amount to at least 80% by 2050.…”

Section: Please Cite As: Bertsch V Hall M Weinhardt C and Fichmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public acceptance and preferences related to renewable energy and grid expansion policy: Empirical insights for Germany

Bertsch

Hall²,

Weinhardt

et al. 2016

Energy

232

126

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The rapid expansion of renewable energy sources (RES) in many European countries brings about transmission grid expansion requirements. While the transition towards RESbased energy systems is largely perceived positively in general, locally both RES and grid expansion are often confronted with a lack of public acceptance. Using Germany as a case study, we analyse public acceptance of energy infrastructure and its main drivers on local vs. national levels. For this purpose, we conducted a nationally representative survey. Our results show that, on a national level, the acceptance of RES is very high and there is also a high acceptance of grid expansion if it helps to increase the share of RES in the system. In terms of local acceptance problems that may arise for most considered technologies, concerns about landscape modification turn out to be the main driving factor. Moreover, the distance between places of residence and places of energy infrastructure construction is crucial. While acceptance or rejection of technologies will never be entirely tangible or explicable, we find the explicability of rejections to be lowest for new technologies. Finally, age and education turn out to be the most relevant socio-demographic variables determining the participants' acceptance. Bertsch, V., Hall, M., Weinhardt, C., & Fichtner, W. (2016). Public acceptance and preferences related to -2 -renewable energy and grid expansion policy: Empirical insights for Germany. Energy, 114,[465][466][467][468][469][470][471][472][473][474][475][476][477]

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“…On the other hand, the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) Special Equalization Scheme provides specific cost reductions for energy-intensive industries such as exemptions from renewable energies contribution. For both aspects, the current beneficial frame is a consequence of the governance of the German electricity market (Fischer et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Analysis of Improved Alkaline Water Electrolysis

2017

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Alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) is a mature hydrogen production technology and there exists a range of economic assessments for available technologies. For advanced AWEs, which may be based on novel polymer-based membrane concepts, it is of prime importance that development comes along with new configurations and technical and economic key process parameters for AWE that might be of interest for further economic assessments. This paper presents an advanced AWE technology referring to three different sites in Europe (Germany, Austria, and Spain). The focus is on financial metrics, the projection of key performance parameters of advanced AWEs, and further financial and tax parameters. For financial analysis from an investor's (business) perspective, a comprehensive assessment of a technology not only comprises cost analysis but also further financial analysis quantifying attractiveness and supply/market flexibility. Therefore, based on cash flow (CF) analysis, a comprehensible set of metrics may comprise levelised cost of energy or, respectively, levelized cost of hydrogen (LCH) for cost assessment, net present value (NPV) for attractiveness analysis, and variable cost (VC) for analysis of market flexibility. The German AWE site turns out to perform best in all three financial metrics (LCH, NPV, and VC). Though there are slight differences in investment cost and operation and maintenance cost projections for the three sites, the major cost impact is due to the electricity cost. Although investment cost is slightly lower and labor cost is significantly lower in Spain, the difference can not outweigh the higher electricity cost compared to Germany. Given the assumption that the electrolysis operators are customers directly and actively participating in power markets, and based on the regulatory framework in the three countries, in this special case electricity cost in Germany is lowest. However, as electricity cost is profoundly influenced by political decisions as well as the implementation of economic instruments for transforming electricity systems toward sustainability, it is hardly possible to further improve electricity price forecasts.

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German energy policy and the way to sustainability: Five controversial issues in the debate on the “Energiewende”

Cited by 71 publications

References 16 publications

A new approach to semantic sustainability assessment: text mining via network analysis revealing transition patterns in German municipal climate action plans

A new approach to semantic sustainability assessment: text mining via network analysis revealing transition patterns in German municipal climate action plans

Public acceptance and preferences related to renewable energy and grid expansion policy: Empirical insights for Germany

Economic Analysis of Improved Alkaline Water Electrolysis

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