Energy Democracy

Germany's Energiewende to Renewables

Craig Morris, Arne Jungjohann

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783319318905
• eBook ISBN: 9783319318912
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Energy Industry
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book outlines how Germans convinced their politicians to pass laws allowing citizens to make their own energy, even when it hurt utility companies to do so. It traces the origins of the Energiewende movement in Germany from the Power Rebels of Schönau to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shutdown of eight nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The authors explore how, by taking ownership of energy efficiency at a local level, community groups are key actors in the bottom-up fight against climate change. Individually, citizens might install solar panels on their roofs, but citizen groups can do much more: community wind farms, local heat supply, walkable cities and more. This book offers evidence that the transition to renewables is a one-time opportunity to strengthen communities and democratize the energy sector – in Germany and around the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Energiewende: The Solution to More Problems Than Climate Change
• 2. The Birth of a Movement: 1970s Protests for Democracy in Wyhl
• 3. Fledgling Wind Power: The Folly of Innovation Without Deployment
• 4. German Wind Pioneers Fighting Power Monopolies in the 1980s
• 5. The Power Rebels of Schönau
• 6. Renewable Energy in Conservative Communities
• 7. The 1990s: Laying the Foundations for the Energiewende
• 8. Green Capitalism Made in Germany
• 9. The Red–Green Revolution (1998–2005)
• 10. Healthy Democracy: Key to the Energiewende’s Success
• 11. Utilities Bet on Gas and Coal and Renewables Boom (2005–2011)
• 12. From Meitner to Merkel: A History of German Nuclear Power
• 13. Merkel Takes Ownership of the Energiewende (2011–Today)
• 14. Will the Energiewende Succeed?
• 15. Act Now or Be Left Out
• Backmatter