Future Infrastructures for Meeting Energy Demands. Towards Sustainability and Social Compatibility
Greater efficiency and a substantial proportion of energy from
renewable sources are the main properties of Germany’s new path towards
sustainable energy. This transition requires a fundamental change of both the
infrastructure and the development and installation of innovative technologies.
At the same time, creative and socially compatible approaches to planning,
steering, adaptation, communication and participation are prerequisites for the
transition to succeed. Starting from late 2011, researchers from a variety of
academic disciplines within the Helmholtz Alliance will apply a holistic and
integrative approach to study the complex relationships between energy supply,
demand and contextual conditions. The research team conceives of energy supply
as a socio-technological system in which technologies, institutional settings
and consumer behavior interact. Studying these interactions will provide
valuable insights for designing improved technical infrastructures and promoting
organizational changes that would lead to the envisioned results.In the future, success or failure of energy innovations will
largely depend on the behavior of private and industrial users. In addition to
technical developments, research needs to take into account whether and in which
ways energy customers as well as stakeholders active in the energy arenas are
willing to commit themselves to the transformation of the energy system.
Emerging risks from innovative technologies and novel innovation networks are
also important topics of the investigations as well as the opportunities for
efficient, fair and reliable “governance“ of an energy system that is clearly
becoming more complex.Placing a stronger focus on the demand and user side marks a
turning point towards an interdisciplinary energy research conducted by
psychologists, economists, social scientists, system theorists and other social
scientists. The Helmholtz Alliance is the common platform for researchers of
these multiple disciplines to coordinate their projects and to cooperate with
technology experts. The ultimate goal is to investigate the terms and conditions
of the planned transformation of the energy system and to facilitate policies
that help reach this goal.ZEW is involved within this research programme in several projects on
energy use, innovations in the energy sector and respective regulation
needs.
See for further information the website of the project:
http://www.energy-trans.de/
Duration: 01.09.2011 - 31.08.2016
- Dr. Georg Licht, ZEW (Coordinator)
- Prof. Dr. Andreas Löschel, ZEW (Coordinator)
- Martin Achtnicht, ZEW
- Dr. Florens Flues, ZEW
- Sven Heim, ZEW
- Benjamin Johannes Lutz, ZEW
- Philipp Massier, ZEW
- Dr. Bettina Peters, ZEW
- Dr. Klaus Rennings, ZEW
- Sascha Rexhäuser, ZEW
- Dominik Schober, ZEW
- Nikolas Wölfing, ZEW
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt , Neue Medien in der Bildung, Hochschulforschung (DLR), Bonn, DE
- Forschungszentrum Jülich, Programmgruppe Systemforschung und technologische Entwicklung (STE), Jülich, DE
- Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, DE
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, DE
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, DE
- Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, DE
- University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, DE
