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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München - LMU

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2012

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Review on the thesis “Resilience in Energie Regionen, Das Praxisbeispiel Energie Region Erzgebirge” by Thorsten Schilling


Seminar: Transition Towards Sustainability

Prof. Dr. C. Binder / Prof. Dr. B. Gill

Review written by:


The thesis “Resilience in Energie Regionen, Das Praxisbeispiel Energie Region Erzgebirge” deals with resilience in energy regions and focuses on the energy region “Erzgebirge” as a concrete example.

The author starts of with an introduction, which points out general ecological problems, like the rise of the temperature in the 21th century. The continuous global change calls for a change in the energy sector, towards the use of sustainable energy sources. The Main research question is, if the structure of an energy region itself can be characterized as resilient.

In the following step the author defines energy regions, like Späth et al. (2007), as a participative initiative, which is characterized with a general principle that establishes a goal-congruence, especially in energy politics. The main focus of energy regions should be the focus on energy-political and energy-economical arrangements.

The next part deals with the resilience approach. Regarding the explanation of the resilience approach the author refers to Brand (2009), who explains resilience as the dimension of external turbulences, which influences a stabile system before this system changes to a new stabile system with a new structure and a new regime.

The resilience of a system describes the flexibility of a system to react to new system-external influences, without a fundamental change of the regime and its structure. A resilient system is characterized with the ability to react fast, efficient and effective to new general conditions and external shocks during a change of the system, but the basic structure is maintained.

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As an example for a high exposure and a high sensitivity the author refers to a big costal city in a tsunami-endangered area. A tsunami would be a potential shock with a high vulnerability, which would cause a huge disaster. If and how the structure of the city would change afterwards is determined by the resilience.

A possible consequence could be a higher adaptive capacity of the city for even bigger tsunamis, if the city learned through the previous disaster. It can be generalized, that the vulnerability is determined by the adaptive capacity. The vulnerability of a system depends on the impact of a potential shock, the exposure, the sensibility and the adaptive capacity.


In the following paragraph the author describes the characteristics of a resilient system. The author considers an operationalization of the term “resilient system” as essential for further illustration of the concrete example focusing on resilience in energy regions.

For a fundamental understanding the author refers to the work of Bahadur, Ibrahim und Tanner (2010) concerning resilient systems. First of all, a resilient system should show a large diversity regarding its actors, because alternatives are needed in case of a disruption.

The efficiency of the governance structures also plays an important role for the resilience of a system. A decentralisation of governance structures has a positive effect on the flexibility and adaption of a system to local and regional circumstances.

Another important characteristic of a resilient system is the fact, that change should not be seen as harassment, but more like a chance that can be used in a positive manner.

A resilient system also has to be able to react to environmental changes, that’s why it is important that a collapse of parts of the system does not cause a collapse of the entire system.

This specific energy region was developed in 2008 and two goals for 2020 are an increase of energy efficiency in the heating sector of 30%, in the electricity sector of 10% and in the fuel sector of 30%. The second goal is an increase of use of renewable energies for the heating sector of 35% and in the electricity sector of 45%.

In the following part of the thesis, the author clearly points out facts about the energy region “Erzgebirge”, which illustrate the resilience of this region. In the energy region “Erzgebirge” alteration and change are a part of the concept, what forms the fundament of a resilient system.

At the end of the paper, the author emphasizes that results of this paper are based on relatively thin database, what implements further research for a more in-depth analysis.


All in all, this thesis gives us a very good overview about resilience in energy regions and the concrete example “Erzgebirge” gives the reader a realistic indication for the understanding of this topic. I would certainly recommend reading this thesis of Thorsten Schilling, which is well structured and understandingly written.



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