German Energy Transition #6
Series
German Energy Transition #6
German Energy Freedom: Moving beyond energy independence to energy democracy
Germany is known for its rapid transition to renewable energy technologies. But it is often overseen that it is not traditional utilities that drive the energy transition. Much of these investments in solar panels, wind turbines, and biogas plants come from ordinary people, from farmers and cooperatives.
Americans, on the other hand, love customer choice and the free market. But when do they pick a utility firm to buy electricity from? Or make their own energy profitably on a level playing field with the big guys? The American journalist Craig Morris argues that Germans have freedoms Americans don’t even know they lack. The renewables sector is an excellent example.
Craig Morris is an American writer and translator in the energy sector who has been based in Germany since 1992. He directs Petite Planète, is the lead author of www.EnergyTransition.de and writes regularly for Renewables International.
This paper is part six of a six-part series on the German Energy Transition (Energiewende). The authors are experts on different issues such as renewable energies, rural communities, social movements, and nuclear power. Click the titles below to read the more of the series.
1- Angst or Arithmetic? Why Germans are so skeptical about nuclear energy
by Paul Hockenos
2- German Solar Bubble? Look again!
by Craig Morris
3- Revitalizing Rural Communitites through the Renewable Energy Cooperative
by Amanda Bilek
4- A Fresh Breeze for Seaports: How offshore wind boosts maritime economies in Germany
by Rebecca Bertram
5- Transatlantic Exchange: Why California is to blame for the "Energiewende"
by Paul Hockenos
6- German Energy Freedom: Moving beyond energy independence to energy democracy
by Craig Morris