The future of the energy transition in Germany

Abstract

Although the goals of the country's energy transition (Energiewende) are widely accepted in Germany, the specific route to get there is itself a matter of great controversy. The individual measures that are part of the energy transition policy and the questions of how they interact and how they are embedded in the European context are objects of controversial scientific and public debate. Most recently, the consequences for the price of electricity have, in particular, been discussed intensely. Against this backdrop of wide-ranging criticism, the future course for promoting renewable energy will soon be set. The German Renewable Energy Sources Act (the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG), which is the main instrument of energy transition policy with its feed-in tariffs, is supposed to be fundamentally revised in the course of this year. A precondition for achieving a coherent further development of the energy transition policy and for receiving the sound support of a critical public is that the long-term consequences of political decisions on a complex sociotechnical energy system be taken into account. The requirements of such a system are not satisfied by policy approaches or recommendations that target short-term effects or that are perceptions of problems extrapolated from individual sectors. On the basis of its integrated research on the energy transition, researchers from the Helmholtz Alliance Energy-Trans take a stand on current important controversial issues from the energy transformation and specify fundamental challenges to shaping a sustainable energy transition policy.Keywords: Energy transition; Sustainability; Germany; European Union; State aid; Renewable energy sources; Feed-in tariff; Federalism; Energy policy; Market designThe energy transition: a long-term project and a challenge to the system The energy transition in Germany is nothing less than the restructuring of the entire energy supply in the sectors' electricity, heat, and transportation in a highly industrialized country. This comprehensive reorganization is a task for generations, and yet the fundamental framework has to be created today. Although there continues to be a high level of approval in the general public [1][2][3][4] and among all political forces [5], essential components of the German energy transition policy are themselves currently being subject to criticism, some of it very intense. The focus of this criticism is most frequently on the renewable energy supports provided for the generation of electricity, which take the form of feed-in tariffs permitted by the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien- Gesetz (EEG)).a Challenges to the energy transition go, however, far beyond this. What is required is a long-term process of transforming a complex sociotechnical system [6,7] in which the goal is to set the course of change so that tomorrow's energy supply works, its consumption of resources, and its impact on the environment are limited to a sustainable level, and, in the process, efficiency and social ac...

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