They sow the wind and reap bioenergy – Implications of the German energy transition on coastal communities in Schleswig ‐ Holstein, Germany

Currently, Germany is reshaping its energy sector from fossil fuels to fundamentally relying on renewable energy. Particularly wind energy and bioenergy are of importance to Schleswig ‐ Holstein, the northernmost German federal state. Despite the already considerable development of these sources, further expansion of wind energy and bioenergy production in Schleswig ‐ Holstein can be expected in the next decades, sparked by increased demand in adjacent metropolitan areas and improved energy infrastructure. However, not all communities in the state will equally benefit from this trend. Developing and applying an agent based model of key renewable energy sources in Schleswig ‐ Holstein, we assess the possible (economic) benefits and (environmental) challenges of the energy transition to the coastal communities along the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts and compare them to the landlocked municipalities. Wind energy and bioenergy have different implications for coastal communities, particularly due to the continued shift of wind energy production from onshore sites to offshore wind farms, increasing the intensity of land use in the affected coastal regions. In contrast, expansion of bioenergy production in coastal communities is much more dependent on energy demand and a successful tradeoff between food and energy because of limited land availability for local agricultural production in Schleswig ‐ Holstein