Institutioneller Rahmen der deutschen Wärmeversorgung – Bestandsaufnahme und energiepolitische Handlungserfordernisse

Germany has committed to extensive climate protection measures as part of the international climate conferences. While great progress has already been made in the electricity generation sector, other sectors are lagging behind expectations. This also includes the heating sector, which is why the German government has adopted a large number of measures in this area in recent years. Most of the individual laws and especially the package of measures as a whole are highly complex and have not been sufficiently well communicated by the legislator. As the package as a whole also shows clear deficits in important economic criteria such as target achievement or cost efficiency, it is hardly surprising that the policy in the heating sector has high acceptance problems among the population and industry. Other points of criticism include a lack of continuity, high transaction costs and unbalanced distribution effects. The entire institutional framework for heat supply should therefore be revised. In addition, there is an urgent need to improve communication, as without the acceptance of the population and industry, the urgently needed “heat transition” cannot be realized due to investments being held back (or not carried out at all).