EmPowerPlan - local participation and equity with an eye on the big picture

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.