Melanie Degel
Research Director

Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieurin Energy and Environmental Management
Research field
Energy, climate and infrastructureThe person
Melanie Degel joined the IZT in 2008 and has been Head of the Research Field "Energy, Climate & Infrastructure" since 2019.
She joined the Institute in 2008 as a research associate. She researches on the topics of energy, climate and air pollution control as well as in the area of integrated technology roadmaps.
In 2014/2015, at the request of the then Scientific Director, she led the research cluster "Sustainability and Transformation" on an acting basis.
From 2013 to 2016, she led the challenging modelling project "VerNetzen". For this, she quantified key social-ecological factors in order to subsequently integrate them into a previously purely technical-economic electricity market model.
Melanie Degel has been involved as chairperson of the works council since May 2011. She is also the Institute's Women's Representative.
She started her career at an energy technology company in the contracting sector.
She studied "Energy and Environmental Management" at the University of Flensburg and completed a semester abroad in Nuuk/Greenland.
She wrote her diploma thesis at the Competence Centre for Renewable Energies at Commerzbank in Hamburg on the topic of technical and economic analysis of innovative biogas utilisation technologies. At the green electricity trader LichtBlick in Hamburg, she investigated consumption profiles of major customers during her practical semester.
Expertise
- Energy and energy forecasts, emissions and emissions scenarios
- Modelling and modelling
- Service development
- Acceptance research
- Scenario technique (explorative/quantitative/normative)
Selected projects and publications
Projects
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2022 - 2025
EmPowerPlan - Participation and justice on the ground and looking at the big picture
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2023 - 2024
Scientific support of a concept, piloting and guideline development in the context of energy sharing
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2021 - 2023
Impact assessment and dissemination potentials of social innovations for sustainable consumption - FoSInKo
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2021
Use of digital technologies in energy communities
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2020
Germany on the way to climate neutrality: What opportunities and risks does digitalisation present?
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2019
Implementation concept for the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin
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2018 - 2019
Research map on coupled, climate-resilient, sustainable infrastructures in Europe
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2018 - 2019
Evaluation of the BfS messages and texts from the area of electricity grid expansion
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2018
Feasibility study on the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin
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2018 - 2021
City of the future: Climate-resilient urban-rural cooperation. Innovations of regional biomass production, circular economy and governance
Publications
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2022
Energy Communities: Accelerators of the decentralised energy transition
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2022
Energy communities: Accelerators of the decentralised energy transition
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2022
Sustainability assessment of socio-technical innovation and biomass use pathways
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2020
Evaluation of the BfS messages and texts from the area of electricity grid expansion
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2019
The future in view: Technology trends in the nexus of resource efficiency and climate protection
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2019
Implementation concept for the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin
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2008
Ecological and economic assessment of resource consumption - Stationary energy storage systems in industrial production
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2018
Feasibility study on the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin
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2017
Energy-efficient services
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2016
Wind expansion scenarios taking into account social and ecological framework conditions for the simulation of the German energy system until 2050