Zukünftige Energie- und Industriesysteme
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The production of green hydrogen in Germany is more competitive than expected compared to imports. This is the key finding of a meta-analysis conducted by the Wuppertal Institute on behalf of the North Rhine-Westphalia Association for Renewable Energies (Landesverband Erneuerbare Energien NRW).
The hydrogen study focuses primarily on the year 2030 and beyond - and confirms the advantages of green hydrogen produced in Germany from domestic renewable energies, especially when the evaluation is viewed from a holistic system perspective.
"Sustainable Development" can be understood as a widely used discourse that has become even more prominent since the publication of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in 2015. In this paper we analyze the way sustainable development discourse unfolds within the context of development aid in Germany by undertaking a discourse analysis of reports on development policy published 1973-2017 by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Our analysis reveals that the sustainable development discourse is characterized by distinct components and storylines that change over time. We detect, in general, a shift away from a focus on environmental protection toward an emphasis on the role of the private sector in leading sustainable development. We argue, therefore, that although development is now only legitimate if it is "sustainable", the discourse apparently facilitates the uneven allocation of development aid. The concern that arises here is that although Agenda 2030 pledges to take "bold and transformative steps" to secure the planet and to leave "no one behind" the least developed states who cannot provide "private sector opportunities" or fulfil "national self-responsibilities" for sustainable development are indeed being "left behind".
There is a growing body of scientific evidence supporting sufficiency as an inevitable strategy for mitigating climate change. Despite this, sufficiency plays a minor role in existing climate and energy policies. Following previous work on the National Energy and Climate Plans of EU countries, we conduct a similar content analysis of the recommendations made by citizen assemblies on climate change mitigation in ten European countries and the EU, and compare the results of these studies. Citizen assemblies are representative mini-publics and enjoy a high level of legitimacy.
We identify a total of 860 mitigation policy recommendations in the citizen assemblies' documents, of which 332 (39 %) include sufficiency. Most of the sufficiency policies relate to the mobility sector, the least relate to the buildings sector. Regulatory instruments are the most often proposed means for achieving sufficiency, followed by fiscal and economic instruments. The average approval rate of sufficiency policies is high (93 %), with the highest rates for regulatory policies.
Compared to National Energy and Climate Plans, the citizen assembly recommendations include a significantly higher share of sufficiency policies (factor three to six) with a stronger focus on regulatory policies. Consequently, the recommendations can be interpreted as a call for a sufficiency turn and a regulatory turn in climate mitigation politics. These results suggest that the observed lack of sufficiency in climate policy making is not due to a lack of legitimacy, but rather reflects a reluctance to implement sufficiency policies, the constitution of the policy making process and competing interests.
To combat climate change, it is anticipated that in the coming years countries around the world will adopt more stringent policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the use of clean energy sources. These policies will also affect the industry sector, which means that industrial production is likely to progressively shift from CO2-emitting fossil fuel sources to renewable energy sources. As a result, a region's renewable energy resources could become an increasingly important factor in determining where energy-intensive industries locate their production. We refer to this pull factor as the "renewables pull" effect. Renewables pull could lead to the relocation of some industrial production as a consequence of regional differences in the marginal cost of renewable energy sources. In this paper, we introduce the concept of renewables pull and explain why its importance is likely to increase in the future. Using the examples of direct reduced iron (DRI) and ammonia production, we find that the future costs of climate-neutral production of certain products is likely to vary considerably between regions with different renewable energy resources. However, we also identify the fact that many other factors in addition to energy costs determine the decisions that companies make in term of location, leaving room for further research to better understand the future relevance of renewables pull.
Case study on the German discourse of industry decarbonisation : a discourse network analysis
(2023)
The adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and the passing of the Climate Action Law in Germany in 2019 established the legal need for the basic material industry in Germany to decarbonise. For the industry sector, the target is sets at a 49-51% GHG reduction by 2030 compared to 1990. Even though the sector specific targets are likely to become obsolete, a Hydrogen Strategy, Industry Strategy and Climate Protection Contracts are currently being developed or elaborated on. These are to further ensure and enable the basic material industry in Germany to decarbonise. These developments are emphasising the relevance of studying the industry decarbonisation at the time of conducting this research.
As the institutionalisation of the industry decarbonisation is influenced by discourse, the analysis of the discourse is an important tool for studying the power effects produced by and built into the discourse. This is the first research aiming to provide a structured analysis of the discourse on industry decarbonisation in Germany. Drawing on discourse analysis and the Multilevel-Perspectives framework, this research investigated the power and dominance of storylines to influence the discourse of the industry transformation towards decarbonisation. In this research insights were obtained into the storylines used in this discourse, the actors who are part of this discourse, the frequency of storylines used and the percentage of actors making use of these storylines. Additionally, insights were generated into the discursive network and potential coalitions.
This research made use of the Discourse Network Analysis software in combination with Visone and Excel for data collection, analysis, and visualisation. Based on 117 documents of various categories from the years 2012 to 2023, the discourse on German industry decarbonisation is discovered to be dominated by storylines of mainly technological or economic nature. The general sentiment discovered by the different actors is positive with the storylines focusing on establishing the conditions for the industry to decarbonise and no resistance being communicated. The discourse is furthermore dominated by most storylines. 18 out of 27 storylines are being used by more than 56% of all actors. The high overlap in storyline indicates discursive homogeneity. The homogeneity is further indicated through the lack of emerging discourse coalitions and the therewith connected lack of struggles for discursive dominance. One coalition can be defined with some actors being deeper involved and some being less involved in the discourse.
As decisions on the transition path for Germany's industry to decarbonise are still to be taken the lack of discursive struggles has come to my surprise. In the discussion I reflect on how the positive sentiment, the discursive homogeneity and the great number of dominant storylines may come about.
In order to limit global warming and fulfill their contributions to the Paris agreement, both Germany and Japan have set targets for climate neutrality towards the middle of the century. Reaching these goals will imply transformation of all sectors of society to avoid all fossil greenhouse gas emissions, heavy industry not the least. The focus of this study is the transformation of the petrochemical industry. This sector can become climate neutral but cannot be "decarbonized", as carbon is integral to the chemical structures of the products like polymers and solvents. Reaching climate neutrality thus means that the whole lifecycle of the petrochemical products has to be regarded. Another specific challenge is today's synergetic relation of this industry to fossil transport fuel production, which cannot be maintained in a climate neutral world.
The two countries interestingly share a similar industrial structure overall, and the chemical and petrochemical industry is one of the major industries in both countries. The countries' respective chemical industries are the third and fourth largest in the world in terms of sales, but at the same time, these industries represent just over 5% of the respective countries' greenhouse gas emissions. However, these scope 1 emissions of the chemical industry itself are far less relevant than the end-of-life emissions of their products, which belong to scope 3 and are thus not counted under the chemical industry in the country greenhouse gas balances. To mediate these emissions, there is a need to set the direction, draw out paths and investigate possible alternatives for how the petrochemical industry can be become climate neutral. In this report, the existing scenario analyses, energy strategies and roadmaps dealing with this issue in the two countries are compared, as well as the current state of their petrochemical industries. We highlight similarities, differences and identify possible areas of cooperation and exchange in order to find robust paths forward for the transformation of the petrochemical industries.
The idea for the Green Recovery Tracker was born in spring 2020 when governments started making announcements on economic Corona recovery measures. From a climate and resilience perspective it is key that those recovery packages, investments and subsidies are in line with long-term climate and sustainability targets. Thus, recovery packages should not only boost the economy in the short-term, but also strike the path to a just transition towards climate neutrality.
Against this background, Wuppertal Institute and E3G have launched the Green Recovery Tracker project in late summer 2020 to shed light on the following questions: What can be considered an effective green recovery? What are good examples, which can be used as an inspiration for recovery programs aiming to support sustainable development? Where do the individual Member States stand with respect to aligning their recovery activities with the climate policy agenda?
In this report, you will find our Methodology as well our Policy Briefing highlighting our key takeaways of our country and sectoral analyses. It further includes a section on "What can we learn from our experience with the Green Recovery Tracker?". The briefing concludes with a "Guidance for future funding programs and achieving climate targets overall".
A clear understanding of socio-technical interdependencies and a structured vision are prerequisites for fostering and steering a transition to a fully renewables-based energy system. To facilitate such understanding, a phase model for the renewable energy (RE) transition in MENA countries has been developed and applied to the country case of Yemen. It is designed to support the strategy development and governance of the energy transition and to serve as a guide for decision makers.
The transition towards REs is still at a quite early stage in Yemen. The military conflict has prevented the implementation of most of the planned large-scale renewable projects. The political instability, the high dependence on fossil fuels, and poor administrative performance are the most pressing concerns for Yemen's electricity sector. At an operational level, Yemen requires a total retrofit of the electricity infrastructure and needs to expand its overall capacity while improving its efficiencies.
Despite these challenges, rebuilding the energy system after the political turmoil and the subsequent violent conflicts could offer Yemen the capability to transition towards renewables. This will provide short-term and long-term opportunities and avoid stranded investments in fossil-fuel capacities.
The priority is to improve the framework conditions for RE in Yemen, starting with the development of a long-term strategy up to 2030 and beyond. Also, an appropriate and transparent legislation must be created. Furthermore, based on the legislation, clear regulations for REs must be introduced, and a realistic timeframe for expansion must be established in order to promote acceptance and market development on a large scale.
The results of the analysis along the transition phase model towards 100% RE are intended to stimulate and support the discussion on Yemen's future energy system by providing an over-arching guiding vision for the energy transition and the development of appropriate policies.
A clear understanding of socio-technical interdependencies and a structured vision are prerequisites for fostering and steering a transition to a fully renewables-based energy system. To facilitate such understanding, a phase model for the renewable energy (RE) transition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries has been developed and applied to ten countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen. This report synthesises the results of these ten studies.
The analysis shows that the state of the energy sector in the MENA region varies from country to country, but some underlying trends are present in all countries. In the majority of countries, energy prices are subsidised, and energy markets are mostly not liberalised. The energy demand in all analysed countries is growing and most grid systems are poorly interconnected across borders. Still, the expansion of RE in the MENA region can benefit from significant global progress and cost reductions in RE technologies.
Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not the only key driver for energy transition. In fact, the main motives for transition are that RE can help to meet growing demand, reduce dependence on imports, increase energy security, and provide opportunities for economic development.
All countries studied have RE targets. While some countries are on track to meet these targets, others need to increase their efforts to expand renewable electricity generation in order to meet their goals. Strong progress has been made in countries with limited fossil energy resources, while in some countries that produce and export large amounts of fossil energy resources, the energy transition is progressing rather slowly.
Community-based approaches to natural resource management are being discussed and experienced as promising ways for pursuing ecological conservation and socio-economic development simultaneously. However, the multiplicity of levels, scales, objectives and actors that are involved in sustainability transformations tends to be challenging for such bottom-up approaches. Collaborative and polycentric governance schemes are proposed for dealing with those challenges. What has not been fully explored is how knowledge from local contexts of community-based initiatives can be diffused to influence practices on higher levels and/or in other local contexts. This study explores how theoretical advances in the diffusion of grassroots innovation can contribute to understanding and supporting the diffusion of knowledge and practices from community-based initiatives and proposes a transdisciplinary approach to diffusion. For that aim, we develop an analytical perspective on the diffusion of grassroots innovations that takes into consideration the multiplicity of actors, levels and scales, the different qualities/types of knowledge and practices, as well as their respective contributions. We focus on the multiplicity and situatedness of cognitive frames and conceptualize the diffusion of grassroots innovations as a transdisciplinary process. In this way three different diffusion pathways are derived in which the knowledge and practices of grassroots initiatives can be processed in order to promote their (re)interpretation and (re)application in situations and by actors that do not share the cognitive frame and the local context of the originating grassroots initiative. The application of the developed approach is illustrated through transdisciplinary research for the diffusion of sustainable family farming innovations in Colombia. This conceptualization accounts for the emergence of multiplicity as an outcome of diffusion by emphasizing difference as a core resource in building sustainable futures.
Transponder-based Aircraft Detection Lighting Systems (ADLS) are increasingly used in wind turbines to limit beacon operation times, reduce light emissions, and increase wind energy acceptance. The systems use digital technologies such as receivers of digital transponder signals, LTE/5G, and other information and communication technology. The use of ADLS will be mandatory in Germany both for new and existing wind turbines with a height of >100 m from 2023 (onshore) and 2024 (offshore), so a nationwide rollout is expected to start during 2022. To fully realize the benefits while avoiding risks and bottlenecks, a thorough and holistic understanding of the efforts required and the impacts caused along the life cycle of an ADLS is essential. Therefore, this study presents the first multi-aspect holistic evaluation of an ADLS. A framework for evaluating digital applications in the energy sector, previously developed by the authors, is refined and applied. The framework is based on multi-criteria analysis (MCA), life cycle assessment (LCA), and expert interviews. On an aggregated level, the MCA results show an overall positive impact from all stakeholders’ perspectives. Most positive impacts are found in the society and politics category, while most negative impacts are of technical nature. The LCA of the ADLS reveals a slightly negative impact, but this impact is negligible when compared to the total life cycle impact of the wind turbines of which the ADLS is a part. Besides the aggregated evaluation, detailed information on potential implementation risks, bottlenecks, and levers for life cycle improvement are presented. In particular, the worldwide scarcity of the required semiconductors, in combination with the general lack of technicians in Germany, lead to the authors’ recommendation for a limited prolongation of the planned rollout period. This period should be used by decision-makers to ensure the availability of technical components and installation capacities. A pooling of ADLS installations in larger regions could improve plannability for manufacturers and installers. Furthermore, an ADLS implementation in other countries could be supported by an early holistic evaluation using the presented framework.
The war in Ukraine is changing the political landscape at breakneck speed. How should politics and society react to high energy prices and a precarious dependence on fossil fuels imports? Can modern societies get by with much less energy? Energy sufficiency can play an important role in answering these questions. The contributions in this Special topic explore sufficiency as an interdisciplinary research topic for energy modeling, scenarios, and policy.
Sufficiency measures are potentially decisive for the decarbonisation of energy systems but rarely considered in energy policy and modelling. Just as efficiency and renewable energies, the diffusion of demand-side solutions to climate change also relies on policy-making. Our extensive literature review of European and national sufficiency policies fills a gap in existing databases. We present almost 300 policy instruments clustered into relevant categories and publish them as "Energy Sufficiency Policy Database". This paper provides a description of the data clustering, the set-up of the database and an analysis of the policy instruments. A key insight is that sufficiency policy includes much more than bans of products or information tools leaving the responsibility to individuals. It is a comprehensive instrument mix of all policy types, not only enabling sufficiency action, but also reducing currently existing barriers. A policy database can serve as a good starting point for policy recommendations and modelling, further research is needed on barriers and demand-reduction potentials of sufficiency policy instruments.
The EU aims to become the first climate neutral continent. To achieve this goal, the industry sector needs to reduce its GHG emissions to net zero or at least close to net zero. This is a particularly challenging task due to the high energy demand especially of primary materials production and the little potential to reduce this energy intensity when switching to other production processes based on electricity or hydrogen. In order to identify robust strategies for achieving a net-zero-compatible industry sector, the paper at hand analyses the transformation of the industry sector as described by a number of recent climate neutrality scenarios for Germany. Apart from overall industry, a focus is set on the sectors of steel, chemicals and cement. The analysed scenarios show very deep GHG emission reductions in industry and they appear to be techno-economically feasible by the mid of the century, without relying on offsets or on shifts from domestic production to imports. The scenarios agree on a suite of core strategies to achieve this, such as direct and indirect electrification, energy efficiency and recycling as well as new technological routes in steel making and cement. The scenarios differ, however, regarding the future mix of electricity, hydrogen and biomass and regarding the future relevance of domestic production of basic chemicals.
Innovative digital technologies open up new opportun ities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve energy efficiency and energy management behavior. The question is: How far will SMEs be capable of profiting from the benefits of these new technologies? Using technology screening, this study identifies smart metering and mobile energy monitoring as digital technologies best addressing SMEs' specific demands. In addition, potentials and limitations of the technologies are investigated in two qualitative in-depth field trials. Barriers to adopting digitally enabled energy management practices are examined. The results indicate that visualising energy data enables SMEs to pursue new energy management practices for reducing energy consumption and costs (such as peak load analysis). SMEs need extensive guidance to identify and pursue these strategies. In conclusion, an exploratory adoption model for digitally enabled energy management practices is developed. Hypotheses for future experimental studies and policy implications are derived.
Direct Air Capture (DAC) is increasingly being discussed as a possibility to limit climate change. In this study, a possible rollout of the DAC technology at German coastal areas is analysed based on an existing climate neutrality scenario. For the year 2045 the resulting costs as well as land, water and energy consumption are examined. It is concluded that a realization of the DAC technology in Germany might be possible from a technical point of view. However, there is a high demand for land and energy. Since a rollout is needed to start in 20 years at the latest, the required discussion and evaluation should be initiated as quickly as possible.
In Argentina, renewable energies are promoted as a way of decarbonising the electricity mix and providing reliable energy services. The national goal is to generate 20% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025. However, despite significant natural potential, solar photovoltaic still represents only a small share of Argentina's total electricity generation. Although this picture may look bleak, a wide range of market segments relating to decentralised photovoltaic generation in Argentina have developed. The general objective of this study is to examine the dynamics that currently enable or constrain the diffusion of distributed photovoltaic systems in Argentina. By applying the Technical Innovation System (TIS) approach, the aim is to understand which functions of the system are strong/weak and how these are influenced by endogenous/exogenous system strengths and weaknesses. To that end, a mixed method research strategy is applied. The exploratory sequential research design allows first to explore system strengths and weaknesses based on qualitative approaches, and then to further analyse the contextual embeddedness and the level of importance of the identified variables using quantitative survey instruments. Thereby, this study provides an important analytical method that contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the interdependencies of the TIS. The empirical results indicate that system weaknesses are shaped to a large extent by the overall contextual dynamics - such as political instability, energy subsidies and high inflation rates. System strengths relate to both the TIS itself (particularly knowledge development through pilot projects and market formation through provincial and national support programmes), to contextual relationships (linked to the availability of educational institutions that enable the rapid diffusion of knowledge) and to the importance of rural areas as protected spaces for the application of photovoltaic systems. Consequently, the study highlights the challenges to overcome for the broader diffusion of distributed photovoltaic generation.
Effective policies to mitigate climate change need to be accompanied by a socially just transition. Based on experiences of past and ongoing transition policies in coal regions in Europe and with indications to the specificity of framework conditions and challenges and to the potential effectiveness and transferability of approaches, this paper presents lessons learnt which can be inspirational for similar transitions in other coal regions and for transitions in other sectors.
This case study examined the structural change in Lusatia caused by the system change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy in the period 1990-2015. It analysed the structural change process and the structural policies implemented as a reaction to this process with the objective to make this knowledge available for future structural change processes in other (coal) regions by deploying various qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical social and economic research. A discourse analysis helped to recognise who supported which structural policy approaches and why - and thus gives indications of the possible relevance of experiences for other regions.
Analysis of the historical structural change in the German hard coal mining Ruhr area (case study)
(2022)
This case study examined the structural change in the Ruhr area caused by the low international competitiveness of German hard coal mining over the period from the late 1950s to 2015. It analysed the structural change process and the structural policies implemented as a reaction to this process with the objective to make this knowledge available for future structural change processes in other (coal) regions by deploying various qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical social and economic research. A discourse analysis helped to recognise who supported which structural policy approaches and why - and thus gives indications of the possible relevance of experiences for other regions.