Moving towards Energy Self-Sufficiency Based on Renewables: Comparative Case Studies on the Emergence of Regional Processes of Socio-Technical Change in Germany

Hauber, Jürgen; Ruppert-Winkel, Chantal

doi:10.3390/su4040491

Cited by 35 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…5/2; female Hauber and Ruppert-Winkel (2012), Ruppert-Winkel et al (2013 http://www.ee-regionen.de 9 plan B:altic How can urban and regional planning deal with climate change impacts?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science: experiences from the German Social-Ecological Research Program

Ruppert-Winkel¹,

Arlinghaus²,

Deppisch³

et al. 2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Transdisciplinary sustainability science (TSS) is a prominent way of scientifically contributing to the solution of sustainability problems. Little is known, however, about the practice of scientists in TSS, especially those early in their career. Our objectives were to identify these practices and to outline the needs and challenges for early career scientists in TSS. To that end, we compiled 10 key characteristics of TSS based on a literature survey. We then analyzed research groups with 81 early career scientists against these characteristics. All of these research groups are funded by an ongoing federally funded German program for socialecological research whose main feature is to promote sustainability-oriented inter-and transdisciplinary research. We found that the practices of the 12 groups generally correspond with the characteristics for TSS, although there is ample variation in how they were addressed. Three major challenges were identified: (1) TSS demands openness to a plurality of research designs, theories, and methods, while also requiring shared, explicit, and recursive use of TSS characteristics; (2) researchers in TSS teams must make decisions about trade-offs between achievements of societal and scientific impact, acknowledging that focusing on the time-consuming former aspect is difficult to integrate into a scientific career path; and (3) although generalist researchers are increasingly becoming involved in such TSS research projects, supporting the integration of social, natural, and engineering sciences, specialized knowledge is also required.

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“…5/2; female Hauber and Ruppert-Winkel (2012), Ruppert-Winkel et al (2013 http://www.ee-regionen.de 9 plan B:altic How can urban and regional planning deal with climate change impacts?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science: experiences from the German Social-Ecological Research Program

Ruppert-Winkel¹,

Arlinghaus²,

Deppisch³

et al. 2015

E&S

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“…The Renewable Energy Act from 2000 and its renewal in 2004 was an incentive instrument and very important in accounting for the increased use of RE, as other municipality cases also show [8]. In the sector of energy conservation, the German Energy Conservation Act was crucial in promoting conservation measures in the heating sector.…”

Section: Emergence Of Two Parallel Branches Of Economic Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Integration of Energy Conservation into the Political Goal of Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—A German Case Study Based on a Longitudinal Reconstruction

Stablo

Ruppert-Winkel

2012

Sustainability

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Many local governments in Germany aim to reach Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency (RESS) in their municipalities. In this context, ambitious time horizons for reaching this goal make it necessary to address the question of how less absolute energy can be consumed. The topic of energy conservation in scientific literature is very controversially discussed and in fact it is not clear which measures in the long term contribute to real reductions in energy demand. Therefore, in this paper, we do not determine how energy conservation should be achieved. Instead, we reconstruct, through an inductive longitudinal study, why energy conservation was integrated into the general principles of a municipality that wished to reach "RESS" by the year 2020 and considerably reduce energy demand. At the same time, we looked at the question of how energy conservation was conceptualized by local actors and which strategies, instruments, and activities were used to reach the goal. We found that environmentally concerned citizens brought the idea of energy conservation into the political arena. However, it was not until energy prices rose, regulations developed on a national level, subsidies for energy conservation emerged, and actions addressing the issue were seen by many local actors as adding value to the unique character the municipality gained by their RESS activities, that the actual subject was considered relevant in the municipality. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2012, 4 889

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“…Self-sufficiency attained with the help of electricity, heat, and fuel from renewable energy (RE) in combination with energy saving is seen as one way to establish a sustainable energy system, e.g., [4,5]. Many communities and regions in different countries are facing the challenge of such a transformation of their energy system, and have taken up the objective of achieving energy self-sufficiency through the use of renewables [4,[6][7][8]. The change to a system mainly based on RE is characterized by numerous aspects that have to be taken into consideration, such as political decision-making processes that are increasingly taking place in local governments, the role of citizen involvement, the economic impact of renewable energies, new technological approaches, sustainable land use systems as well as the challenge of adopting energy saving behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the Energy System towards Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—Towards a multi-perspective and Interdisciplinary Framework

Ruppert-Winkel

Hauber

2014

Sustainability

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The transformation of the present energy system into a sustainable one is discussed worldwide. This is also mirrored in a vivid debate in the scientific literature [1–3]. Self-sufficiency attained with the help of electricity, heat, and fuel from renewable energy (RE) in combination with energy saving is seen as one way to establish a sustainable energy system, e.g., [4,5]. Many communities and regions in different countries are facing the challenge of such a transformation of their energy system, and have taken up the objective of achieving energy self-sufficiency through the use of renewables [4,6–8]. [...]

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Moving towards Energy Self-Sufficiency Based on Renewables: Comparative Case Studies on the Emergence of Regional Processes of Socio-Technical Change in Germany

Cited by 35 publications

References 43 publications

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science: experiences from the German Social-Ecological Research Program

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science: experiences from the German Social-Ecological Research Program

The Integration of Energy Conservation into the Political Goal of Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—A German Case Study Based on a Longitudinal Reconstruction

Changing the Energy System towards Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—Towards a multi-perspective and Interdisciplinary Framework

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