Using public participation to coordinate German grid planning: Who participates and how are the results processed by the German energy regulator?

The construction of electricity grids in Germany is a massive coordination problem, engendering conflicts between the federal government and the Bundesländer, among the Bundesländer, and between state and society. The German legislator tries to alleviate these coordination problems by mandating multiple public consultations at the earliest stage of grid planning: The German transmission system operators (TSOs) have to prepare a network development plan which is subject to comprehensive public participation procedures. The Federal Network Agency then performs its own public participation and decides on the German network development plan. Based on an extensive dataset of all contributions to both consultations, and the decisions of the Federal Network Agency, our paper analyzes the following questions: Who participates, who succeeds with what arguments and how does the Federal Network Agency process the consultation results? On this basis, we can make a preliminary assessment of the effects of the consultation procedure, also in comparison to the consultation regimes of other member states. Theoretically, the German procedure may improve the output legitimacy and accountability of bureaucratic decision-making, and/or aggregate interests in a representative way. Alternatively, it may just be myth and ceremony, without any impact on actual decisionmaking. In effect, we can answer the question: Does public participation help the German political system to solve coordination problems, or does it on the contrary aggravate existing conflicts, by, e.g. giving unequal voice to different participant groups?