Climate Democracy

How does Denmark plan to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 -- and how does it already get almost half of its electricity from renewables? Stephanie Joyce, a 2015 Energy and Climate Media Fellow for Heinrich Böll North America, has an answer in part three and the final installment of her series from Bornholm, Denmark.

During his recent visit to Washington, D.C., we spoke with Jürgen Trittin, Member of the German Parliament, about European energy independence in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, the role of TTIP in enhancing energy security across the Atlantic, and how the German Energiewende can serve as a model for policy makers worldwide.

Part two of a series by Stephanie Joyce, another 2015 Energy and Climate Media Fellow for Heinrich Böll North America, in Bornholm, Denmark - or as she puts it, "a real-life test lab for the grid of the future." Listen and read more at Inside Energy:

This week The Heinrich Böll Foundation is hosting a delegation of U.S. state legislators on the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour 2015.

Germany’s energy transition – or Energiewende – has created a global market for renewable energies, such as wind and solar, by promoting the rapid build-up of these technologies through a stable policy framework. As a result, the cost of both wind and solar has dramatically decreased over the past few years. This is now enabling other countries to follow suit, in particular the United States.

People have been fantasizing about hydrogen cars forever. It was the car of the future before the Prius and the Tesla were the car of the future. TECN Media Fellow Peter Thomson reports from Berlin on the development of hydrogen-power cars in Germany.

Too much solar and wind power. Really? Is that possible? It’s a good problem to have, because if we’re going to beat climate change, we’re going to need way more low-carbon energy than we get now. But it’s still a problem for Germany.

Solar power production has grown more than 25 times over the last decade in Germany, spurred largely by big incentives for small producers to get into the market. But sunshine and wind power are intermittent, so engineers and others are looking for ways to balance out the flow of these renewable power sources through new storage technologies.

On December 15, 2014, the Heinrich Böll Foundation hosted representatives of renewable energy associations from each of the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – in Washington. See interviews with them here about diversifying the energy mix to include more renewables.