The "EmPowerPlan" project is testing the use and adaptation of a simulation tool and collaborative processes. Regional planning actors are to be supported - as participatively as possible - in order to address the challenges of provisioning regional areas energies at an early stage and in dialogue. In this way, decision-makers in public administrations are to be supported in approving the production of renewable energies more quickly. This accelerates the expansion of energy infrastructures at the regional level.  

This is made possible in particular by the use of the "Simulation Tool for Stakeholder Empowerment" (StEmp-Tool), developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI). Using the electricity market models created by the Öko-Institut (ÖI), local expansion paths are to weigh the regional contribution of renewable energies against the overarching expansion goals of the energy transition at the state and federal level. Because, besides local energy management issues, trust, justice and fairness are important success factors in the expansion of renewable energies, the use of the tool in the regional planning process is being tested in a participatory manner and accompanied by social science studies from the IZT and the Öko-Institut and examined with regard to its effects. Other planning regions should be able to benefit from the results.  

To the EmPowerPlan tool for the Oderland-Spree region

Registration for the digital final conference: Planning the energy transition together - presentation of the EmPowerPlan tool

"With a constructive process design around the StEmp tool, we want to achieve a visually tangible planning outcome that is supported by all regional stakeholders."
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Melanie Degel
Research Director
Energy, climate and infrastructure
"In order to involve both the formal stakeholders and those who then have to live with their decisions, our aim is not to impose the highest possible expansion volume, but to create a lasting and constructive dialogue."
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Jakob Lenz
Conflict manager and moderator
Energy transition and conflicts
"To accompany the planning process in the project, we use various social science methods. This allows us to evaluate the success of the collaboration and make recommendations for improvement and transferability to other regions."
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Dr Regina Rhodius
Senior Researcher
Nuclear technology & plant safety
"StEmp tools can make an important contribution to the energy transition by visualising regional issues interactively."
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Jonathan Amme
Researcher
Environmental Technology/ Regenerative Energies
"In our planning region Oderland-Spree, we compare the nationally and regionally necessary degree of expansion of renewable energies with the envisaged sub-regional plan for renewable energies in Oderland-Spree."
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Dr Marion Wingenbach
Senior Researcher
Energy & Climate Protection
More info

The StEmp tool for the planning region working with us in the EmPowerPlan project builds on existing dialogue and visualisation tools for energy and infrastructure developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute in earlier, publicly funded projects: