Shaping the regional energy transition together

The successful implementation of the energy transition requires the involvement of all interested actors. This applies equally to urban and rural areas. Cooperative planning is key to engaging people, aligning more closely with their needs and expectations, harnessing their commitment, and ensuring a fair distribution of opportunities and burdens. In doing so, there is no single, standardized approach that can be applied uniformly across all regions. This is because regions have developed over time through historical and cultural processes and are shaped by different experiences and conditions. The PlanTieFEn¹ project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), provides insights into how to design a cooperative planning approach tailored to specific cultural regions. The Energy Cultures Atlas (German: Atlas Energiekulturen) illustrates the results from three regions which may give orientation in this endeavor.