Amidst other national and global climate protection initiatives, the new EU Commission under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen is facing the challenge of concretely following through on previous announcements regarding an ambitious climate policy. Specifically, action must be taken to raise...

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the energy transformation process ongoing in Germany, now commonly referred to as energiewende, in the European context, with a focus on the electricity sector. It presents an expert look at the origins of the German energiewende, its concrete...

The European Green Deal, initiated by the EU Commission, is a package of measures aimed at decarbonization and sustainable economic development with the goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050. To achieve this goal, the emission reductions target must be increased from 40...

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the energy transformation process ongoing in Germany, now commonly referred to as energiewende, in the European context, with a focus on the electricity sector. It presents an expert look at the origins of the German energiewende, its concrete...

Continued global action on climate change has major consequences for fossil fuel markets, especially for coal as the most carbon-intensive fuel. This article summarizes current market developments in the most important coal-producing and coal-consuming countries, resulting in a critical...

The political discussion to reduce the carbon footprint of Germany’s electricity sector, focusing on coal, is intensifying. In this paper, we develop scenarios for phasing out lignite and hard coal power plants in Germany prior to the end of their technical lifespan (“coal-exit”). Our...

The main aim of models has never been to provide numbers, but insights. Still, challenges prevail for modelers to use the best configuration of their models to provide helpful insights. In the case of energy system modelling, this becomes even more complicated due to increasing complexity of the...