RLS Graduate School publishes impulse paper

December 17, 2020 | The Reiner Lemoine Foundation (RLS) Graduate School has published an impulse paper for the election year 2021. The paper, entitled “Setting the Course for the Renewable Energy System”, highlights the issues of flexibility, storage technologies, social participation, and renewable mobility and makes recommendations to policymakers on how to advance the Energy Transition. In their view, the eleven points that the members of the group have identified together with experts should be high on the political agenda in the election year 2021.

Research findings as impulses to policy makers

“The scientific findings on climate change are clear: We must act. We see the same thing with regard to the need to transform the energy system. In order for the Energy Transition to succeed, policymakers must set the course toward the renewable energy system and overcome conventional structures by 2021 at the latest,” says Philipp Blechinger, head of the RLS Research Training Group and Head of the RLI Off-Grid Systems Research Unit.

A graduate school for the Energy System Transition

The RLS Graduate School, based at the RLI, began its work in January 2020. For four years, the team will conduct research on issues related to the Energy System Transition. A total of four scholarships from the Reiner Lemoine Foundation have been awarded for this purpose. The school will help to better understand systemic obstacles to the Energy Transition and to research targeted solutions in order to make an energy system with 100% renewable energy possible. It works in a practical and application-oriented way and is supported by a network of experts.

Members of the Bundestag discussed the proposals

The impulse paper and the proposed course settings were also on the agenda of a web conference on November 30, 2020, where politicians from the current Bundestag discussed the proposed course settings with the authors of the paper, and a keynote address was given by Claudia Kemfert from DIW Berlin. A recording of the conference is available on the RLS website.