How to Go on with the German 'Energiewende'? Debating Challenges, Shortcomings and Prospects

Abstract

The German “Energiewende” has long been observed as model for the transformation towards a sustainable energy system that is primarily based on renewable energy sources (Hake et al., 2015). However, not only the sharp increase in electricity prices, the stagnant expansion of the transmission grid and the continuing importance of fossil energy sources have increasingly called critics to the scene. While the problems of the ongoing first phase of the energy transition, which is primarily characterized by technology developments in the field of photovoltaics and wind energy use as well as energy-efficient construction, are by no means solved, the challenges of a second phase of the energy transition are increasingly being addressed. After all, the continued expansion of power generation based on renewable energies inevitably requires greater integration of the electricity, heat and transport sectors (Acatech 2017). The panel addresses issues affecting the state and implementation of the first phase of the energy transition as well as forward-looking questions of extending the energy transition to different sectors (e.g. transport). The continuation of the energy transition is equally affecting user behavior, social discourses, political conflicts, and governance and political regulation. The papers presented in the panel pay attention to the various current and future challenges of the “Energiewende”: Yoichi Nakagawa addresses the changes in German energy governance emerging in course of the energy transition; Jörg Kemmerzell contributes to the governance of sector coupling and sector integration, which can be understood as the main future challenge of the “Energiewende”; Angela Oels and Pia Buschmann as well as Antonia Graf and Marco Otto Sonnberger analyze discourses affecting the transitory dimension of the energy system. While Oels and Buschmann deal with a crucial problem of the current phase of the energy transition, the “discursive carbon lock-in”, Graf and Sonnberger elaborate on “socio-technical imaginaries of future mobilities” as the subjective face of a greener mobility. Mario Neukirch analyzes protests against a major infrastructural project of the “Energiewende”, the so called “electricity highways”. He asks how far these protests could be understood as a call for the energy system’s decentralization, in opposition to upholding a centralized structure, which depends on the new transmission lines.