More than 30.000 people visited the online and offline events of the Berlin Energy Days in the first week of May 2022.
On May 6th, 2022, DIALOGUES’ partner, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) organized an event at the conference on the means to support energy citizenship. Almost 100 people attended the event and made it a successful discussion.
The focus of the event was on the chances and burdens of citizens to participate in the energy transition, different concepts, and regulations.
The moderator of the event was Fritz Reusswig (Senior researcher at PIK), and the panel of experts participating in the discussions was composed by:
The event kick-started with a warm and friendly welcome from Fritz Reusswig to the participants and speakers. He highlighted the importance of energy citizenship in terms of achieving the ambitious climate and energy targets of the new federal government in Germany. Moreover, the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war puts a strong focus on the topic of energy sovereignty and energy efficiency. Of course, this has a huge impact on the perception and roles of the population in the energy system. Julia Epp presented some insights from the academic literature and scientific community. There is no overarching and universal understanding of energy citizenship as a concept. The DIALOGUES Project looked into different definitions of the term energy citizenship and concluded that the role of citizens in the energy system must be seen as a social construct. Citizens are not just given rights and opportunities for participation, but they interact in a very dynamic way and in a social context with the energy system. Thus, citizens may take up different roles, f.e. as investors, role models, consumers, etc… But they can also engage through various actions such as protesting for or against energy-related projects, switching to renewable energy tariffs, or buying energy-efficient applications. However, you can see a big discrepancy regarding diversity in energy citizenship. Empirical studies show that mostly well-educated, white men with an over-average income participate in the energy transition. Julia Epp concluded her presentation by indicating that PIK is coordinating a Citizen Action Lab about diversity in the energy citizenship together with BürgerEnergie Berlin and GenderCC which has just started its work.
The next input was given by Christoph Rinke, who spoke about the becoming of BürgerEnergie Berlin and their ambitious goal which is the transformation of Berlin’s energy system towards a renewable and sustainable system by enabling all citizens possibilities for engagement. Currently, BürgerEnergie Berlin has two concrete ambitions: First, the Berlin electricity grid was repurchased from Vattenfall by the state of Berlin. As an important critical infrastructure, BürgerEnergie Berlin fights for the possibility of civic participation in the management of the electricity grid. Second, BürgerEnergie Berlin is promoting the local energy transition in Berlin by building renewable power plants together with citizens. At the moment, mostly citizens living in one- or two-family homes have invested privately in solar power plants. Due to bureaucratic and regulative barriers, it is very difficult for tenants to realize renewable energy projects on their buildings. For him, it is important to motivate and inspire as many citizens as possible to participate in energy transition, because it contributes to more welfare, acceptance, and climate protection.
Next Lars Rotzsche shared his experience of building wind power plants in the woods surrounding the city of Kassel. Even though forests and woods often clash with wind power in Germany, the case of Kassel showed how nature conservation, participation, and renewables can be conciliated. Lars Rotzsche explained that his organization tries to plan renewable energy projects in the state where it is clear that the project will be realized. Once they have reached this status they start a wide and open participation process. For example, for a 27-MW wind farm in the woods, they have won 12 partners of whom were six energy cooperatives with more than 3000 members, two neighboring municipalities, and four municipal energy suppliers. Moreover, they organized the participation according to an ‘onion principle’: The closer somebody lives to the wind farm the higher the shares and revenues in the holding of the wind farm. They have even managed to organize a protest FOR this wind power project in their region. Finally, Lars Rotzsche concluded that proprietors of forests and planers of wind parks should find ways to cooperate and the involvement of municipalities is crucial.
Last but not least, Rene Mono offered his perception of energy citizenship. Before Rene Mono joined E.ON he was -among other things – on the board of the German Citizen Energy Alliance. Briefly, he talked about the obstacles that initiatives supporting energy citizenship had to overcome in the past like the regulative changes in the German Renewable Energy Directive. In addition, Rene Mono talked about his new position at E.ON and why he changed from the ecosystem of energy citizenship to a big energy company. For once, E.ON is one of the largest owners of electrical distribution grids which are important infrastructure in the energy transition. Due to the higher degree of electrification by fostering electric mobility and heat pumps he sees a big responsibility with companies like E.ON to prepare for the next steps in the energy transition. Moreover, the European Commission has set the frame for energy communities and energy sharing in the RED II. With this directive, the EU emphasizes the central role of the population in the energy system. Producers of renewable electricity and consumers could consolidate to become a community in which energy is locally traded. This directive should have been translated into German law by June 2021, however, nothing has happened yet.
After the input of the speakers, the participants of the event had the possibility to ask questions. The audience was interested in the role of digitalization and in current political developments. After a fruitful discussion, Fritz Reusswig closed the event.
We thank all the speakers and participants of the event for their time and interest in discussing energy citizenship.
Information about the event > HERE
*Content in German