This cross-sectional, interdisciplinary study traces the “history of innovation” of renewable energies in Germany. It features five renewable energy sectors of electricity generation: biomass, photovoltaic, wind energy, geothermal energy and hydropower. The study tracks the development of the respective technologies as well as their contribution to electricity generation. It focuses on driving forces and constraints for renewable energies in the period between 1990 and today.

Elke Bruns works as senior research associate at the Environmental Assessment and Policy Research Group at the Berlin Institute of Technology (www.umweltpruefung.tu-berlin.de). She studied environmental planning and became familiar with renewable energies in the early 1990s, when working on a wind turbine zoning decree at the Ministry of Environment in the state of Brandenburg. Since then she has continuously worked in the field of impact assessment, impact mitigation and spatial aspects of renewable energies at the Berlin Institute of Technology. Since 2003 she had focused on analyzing the constellation and driving factors that influence renewable energy developments, and their environmental implications. Contact: elke.bruns@tu-berlin.de Dörte Ohlhorst works as research associate at the German Advisory Council on the Environment since March 2009. Since 1999 she has been an academic researcher at the Centre for Technology and Society at the Berlin Institute of Technology. She focused on the development of wind energy in her PhD thesis and gained her PhD in Political Science at the Free University of Berlin in 2008. Her primary fields of interest include German renewable energy policy, environmental and innovation policy, multi-level governance, sustainability strategies and social participation focusing on methods for interdisciplinary studies. Contact: ohlhorst@zedat.fu-berlin.de Bernd Wenzel is head of Ingenieurbüro für neue Energien (IfnE), a research and consulting institute for renewable energies and climate protection, resident in Teltow, Berlin. He established IfnE in 2005 and has since worked on several research projects, including for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, and other organizations and municipalities. His focus is on economic and technical analysis of climate protection activities and renewable energies in electricity production. For more information please visit http://www.ifne.de (German). Contact: bwenzel@ifne.de Johann Köppel is a full professor at the Berlin Institute of Technology and head of the Environmental Assessment and Policy Research Group (www.umweltpruefung.tu-berlin.de). He teaches Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Planning, and has for 10 years been involved in research on supporting as well as impeding approaches to the sustainable deployment of renewable energies. Recently he has been pursuing a comparative analysis of the roles that the USA and Germany play in leading the field of renewable energies. Contact: johann.koeppel@tu-berlin.de