Roofs still offer enormous potential for solar electricity generation. In order to achieve the ambitious expansion targets of the German government, this potential must be raised. In a new project, Ecologic Institute and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) analyze different system concepts and evaluate their economic viability. Existing barriers to the expansion of photovoltaic systems on buildings are identified and the extent to which the Renewable Energy Sources Act 2023 will remove these barriers is examined. As a result of the project, recommendations for further improvements of the regulatory framework will be elaborated.

The Covid-19 pandemic and, most recently, the war that has erupted in Ukraine have shown that such crises can have a major impact on European emissions trading. This raises the central question: Can and must the European emissions trading system become more crisis-proof? In the present project, concrete crisis scenarios are developed that could put a strain on the European emissions trading system (EU ETS). This is followed by an analysis of the possibilities that the existing laws and regulations offer for reacting to such crises. The further aim of the project is to show ways to improve the handling of crises within the trading system.

In this project, Ecologic Institute undertook an inventory of climate policies, emissions pathways and complementary measures in the G7 countries. This is intended to help identify gaps in the existing policy landscape of global decarbonisation efforts. Based on the findings, possible improvements were proposed. The project report is available for download.

Ecologic Institute was commissioned by WISE Netherlands to take a more in-depth look at how Member States are spending their auctioning revenues, and if and how they are using them for climate action. Furthermore, we wanted to understand the political context and the narrative around auctioning revenues. For this purpose, we conducted eight country case studies, namely Czech, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. We based our analysis on Member States' reporting to the European Commission regarding the use of auctioning revenues, desk research on legal documents and interviews with relevant experts from ministries and NGOs.

The EU has specified climate neutrality as a legally binding 2050 target. This transformation requires bold policy tools that can deliver concrete results – sector-by-sector. To inspire policymakers across the EU to get active, Agora Energiewende is compiling best practice examples of policies that are successful in initiating progress towards climate neutrality. Ecologic Institute contributes to this project by researching and drafting fiches for ten best practice cases. Moreover, the team is supporting Agora Energiewende in selecting suitable cases. Ecologic Institute draws on its in-house expertise in a wide range of sectors.

Regional governments are key players in driving the transformation towards climate neutrality, as they are the ones who enable and implement solutions on the ground. For the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Development, Ecologic Institute together with partners identifies EU regions that are successfully transforming their economies towards climate neutrality. Based on six case studies, the project distills key drivers, conditions and mechanisms for a successful transformation of regional economies – leading to concrete policy recommendations for the EU level on how to support in this effort.

Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission) described the European Green Deal as "Europe's man-on-the-moon moment". With this plan, the European Union aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, protect and enhance nature, and sustainably transform the European economy and society. But what exactly is the European Green Deal? Which role does it play in our everyday life? And what challenges does it pose? In our podcast and webinar series "Green deal – Big Deal?" we take a critical look at these questions and discuss various aspects of the European Green Deal with experts from policy, business and science.

By 2030, 80% of the electricity generated in Germany is to come from renewable sources. For this to succeed, electricity market regulations must be further developed. On behalf of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Environment, Ecologic Institute analyzes various fundamental questions regarding the marketing and promotion of renewable energies. In an interdisciplinary research team led by consentec, Ecologic Institute is responsible for energy law-related issues. Among the central topics are reform approaches for the Renewable Energy Sources Act, the regional steering of the development of renewable energy sources, the marketing of green electricity and the regulation on self-consumption of solar energy.

To achieve climate neutrality by 2050, EU policy will have to be reoriented – from incremental towards structural change. As expressed in the European Green Deal, the challenge is to initiate the necessary transformation to climate neutrality in the coming years, while enhancing competitiveness, productivity, employment. To mobilise the creative, financial and political resources, the EU also needs a governance framework that facilitates cross-sectoral policy integration and that allows citizens, public and private stakeholders to participate in the process and to own the results.

Regions play a central role in achieving the substantial acceleration of renewable energy deployment required to reach the 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets. This project examined the socio-economic effects of renewable energy deployment at the regional level in the EU and subsequently identified factors that are conducive to an equitable energy transition. Ecologic Institute conducted a case study on the role of renewable energy and its socio-economic imparts in the North German region Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Photovoltaic technology is a key lever for decarbonising Berlin's power consumption and for social participation in the transformation process, especially for tenants. Therefore, solar energy and projects on rental apartment blocks are key elements of the Berlin Senate's Energy and Climate Protection Programme. In the research project "ElectricityNeighbours", Ecologic Institute and IÖW evaluate the experience gained so far in implementing such prosumer projects in Berlin, outline innovation potentials for the field and develop ideas on how the regulatory framework can be further developed. In doing so, the team looks beyond pure tenant electricity projects to the potentials of sector coupling.

The aim of this project is to assess – for a selection of EU Member States – the impacts of policies and measures (PaMs) as described in their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). To this end, the project team identifies specific policy instruments and related ex-ante and ex-post evaluations, to collect and compare impact estimates and analyze the implications for achieving the energy and climate goals. The assessment also provides insights into the methodological uncertainties of evaluations in different policy areas. The considered policy areas are energy efficiency, renewable energy, cross-cutting instruments and agriculture and the NECPs from the following Member States are included; Germany, Denmark, France, Slovenia and Sweden.

The project establishes a network of think tanks from eight Member States – Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Poland. Its main objectives are (1) to monitor the domestic debates on the CFE and its link to climate policies, (2) to facilitate dialogues between Member States on the CFE, and (3) to contribute regularly to the domestic debates on the CFE.

In this project, Clean Energy Wire (CLEW) and Ecologic Institute organised a series of 10 online briefing events (webinars) to inform journalists about the key elements and topics of European energy and climate policy. In total, more than 130 journalists from 30 countries participated in the ten events, dissecting topics like the 2030 EU climate target, the UN climate change conference COP26 and the EU's carbon border levy plans. The attendees ranged from journalists representing smaller local publications to those from established media such as Bloomberg, NY Times, the Guardian, Euractiv and Die Welt.

In this project, Climact and Ecologic Institute analysed the impact assessment for the new EU climate target proposed by the Commission in September 2020. After examining policy options and modelling results, they were compared with recent studies, in particular with Climact's modelling results for 2030. A policy brief highlights key points where the Commission differs from other studies and identifies climate change potentials that deserve more attention in future analyses.