• Energy Research

Despite its impressive quantity current climate protection law is not suited to solve the climate problem – neither on a global level through public international law nor in the EU or Germany. In Germany, not only the absolute emission levels raise concerns. Relative development, too, is much worse than is often assumed. German climate law is characterized by a variety of rules, although a substantial part (more or less) implements EU law. The – internationally often copied – German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) contains a fixed tariff for renewable electricity similar to a subsidy. In addition to that and to a number of energy efficiency rules, there are a number of legal rules that directly flank the regulatory, financial, and informational regulations on efficiency, sufficiency, and renewable energies. It remains true, however, that renewable energies and energy efficiency do not per se reduce greenhouse gas emissions or replace fossil fuels; in fact there may also be shifts in emissions and fuel transfers to other countries and/or increases in overall energy consumption. These rebound and shifting effects are a common major barrier to effective climate policy, including energy efficiency policy. A ­completely new cap and trade approach on the EU level (combined with border adjustments) might be the best way to solve these problems.

Whereas hydromorphological alterations represent one of the major ecological challenges for European river systems, very few economic instruments exist to mitigate their impacts. The German Renewable Energy Sources Act has established an innovative instrument for the hydropower sector. By guaranteeing higher remuneration for electricity produced by hydropower installations that comply with selected ecological requirements, it provides incentives for improving the morphological situation next to the plants.

Wind Farms (WFs) that are nowadays connected to the German distribution or transmission system have to fulfill the technical requirements stated in the 2009 revision of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act. On the one hand these requirements specify more precisely the already existing connection conditions they are based on. On the other hand they give additional criteria especially regarding the dynamic behavior during under and over voltage conditions in the grid. ENERCON Wind Energy Converters (WECs) can fulfill these stringent demands due to their full-size converter design and the associated so-called FACTS Capabilities. Consequently, ENERCON was awarded the first type-certificate according to these German connection conditions in 2009. The present paper describes the Fault Ride Through (FRT) performance of ENERCON WECs that responds specifically to the above mentioned requirements. Furthermore, measurement examples that prove compliance with the connection conditions are shown and it is explained how the corresponding field tests are done.

German renewable energy developments are frequently quoted around the world. Often the same circumstances are used as either good or bad examples, depending on individual points of view. This article sheds some light on the latest 2014 revision of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), commonly referred to as EEG 2014. The EEG 2014 represents a major shift from support that was mainly granted in the form of fixed-feed tariffs to mandatory direct marketing that is promoted by market premiums. Furthermore, the EEG 2014 lays down the foundation for the next step of promoting renewables, in which financial support will be established through competitive bidding.

Empirical research on eco-innovation has produced a substantive body of literature on the relevance of regulation for stimulating such innovation. Much of this work on the role of policy for eco-innovation relies on econometric analyses of company survey data. In this regard, the eco-innovation module introduced in 2008/9 in the Community Innova-tion Survey serves as an important data source that has helped improve our under-standing of the role of environmental and innovation policy for eco-innovation in the Eu-ropean Union (EU). However, so far, this data source has provided only limited oppor-tunities to generate insights into the role of instrument design and instrument interaction for eco-innovation. In this chapter, we present a first attempt to measure such aspects in a company innovation survey based on the example of renewable energy innovation in Germany. In particular, we explore to what extent the design of the German Renewa-ble Energy Sources Act (and the interaction of its feed-in tariffs with the EU emissions trading system) correlates with innovation in renewable power generation technologies. We find instrument design features but not instrument type to be related to eco-innovation. In addition, our exploratory study provides evidence for an interaction effect between climate policy and renewables support policy. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for future research on the role of policy in eco-innovation.

Sustainability policies based on the economic rationale of providing incentives to get prices right inevitably place a significant burden on society and often raise distributional concerns. The social acceptability of Germany’s energy transition towards more sustainable generation and usage of energy is frequently the subject of such critical appraisals. The discourse centres upon the burden imposed on electricity users as a result of the promotion of renewable energy sources in the electricity sector in accordance with the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). A regressive EEG surcharge is suspected of driving up energy prices unreasonably and of being socially unjust. It is also argued that high-income utility owners profit from the EEG system at the expense of low-income electricity consumers (redistribution from bottom to top). The aim of this paper is to examine the validity of these two hypotheses and to show that both exhibit substantial theoretical and empirical weaknesses, with climate and environmental policy being played off against social policy in a questionable manner. At the same time, the article points out remaining conflicts between energy policy and social policy and makes corresponding policy recommendations for their resolution, thus contributing to reconciling distributional concerns arising in the context of incentive-oriented sustainability governance.

While the success of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act in supporting the use of renewable energy sources for electricity generation is widely acknowledged, it is partly criticised for imposing unjustified extra costs on society. Based on the well established ExternE methodology for the quantification of environmental externalities the paper makes an attempt to estimate the external costs avoided in the German energy system due to the use of renewable energies for electricity generation, and to compare them against the compensation to be paid by grid operators for electricity from renewable energies according to the Renewable Energy Sources Act. In spite of existing uncertainties associated with the assessment of external costs, results clearly indicate that the reduced environmental impacts and related economic benefits do outweigh the additional costs for the compensation of electricity from renewable energies.

Against the background of a rapidly developing German biogas to electricity sector, this paper identifies the most profitable biogas plant configurations under the current energy–political framework conditions, by considering variable biomass inputs and prices. The paper addresses the following research question: what is the optimal biomass input to be valorized, in order to maximize the specific net operating profit of the considered plants? For the considered supply chains, i.e. energy crops with manure and biowaste valorization, kinetics as well as biological reactions are considered in order to model the biogas production. In a further step, an economic assessment for the two biogas plant types is realized by determining the annual costs, as well as by considering subsidies for the electricity generation from biogas based on the German Renewable Energy Sources Act 2012. For each of the two considered supply chains, an optimal economic operation point is determined, regarding the valorized biomass input quantity. In the case of a co-digestion from energy crops and manure, 4.32 ct/kWhel are reached for an optimal installed capacity of about 1.2 MWel. Biowaste plants show a theoretical maximal specific net operating profit of 4.97 ct/kWhel at about 4.0 MWel with biowaste subsidies at 50 €/t and for 120,000 t/a valorized substrate. Whilst agricultural plants are generally more economically attractive they exhibit a higher greenhouse gas potential, which means a trade-off. The successful future development of the German biogas sector will thus rely on overcoming several technical, social and political barriers.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Abstract This article demonstrates that the large feed-in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in Germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of German hard coal production, a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention. Yet, as a consequence of the coexistence of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ETS alone. Similarly disappointing is the net employment balance, which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic (PV) support. Along the lines of the international energy agency [IEA, 2007. Energy policies of IEA countries: Germany, 2007 review. International Energy Agency, OECD, Paris, p. 77], we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed-in tariffs granted for solar-based electricity. Ultimately, producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options.