an examination of the antecedents and implications of patent scope this paper focuses on the concept of patent scope and contributes to existing research in three ways first it offers a re examination of the construct and identifies two dimensions of patent scope 1 the number of variations of the core inventive idea identified in the patent reflected in the number of claims in the patent e g merges and nelson 1994 and 2 the positioning of those variations in the inventive space which is reflected in the number of technological classes in which patent examiners classify those claims second it investigates the implications of patent scope for the firm s subsequent inventive performance and finds that when the scope of a patents spans across a higher number of technological classes the extent to which the inventing firm itself succeeds in building on the knowledge underlying its own patent is lower third it investigates the antecedents of scope and suggests that prior investment in scientific knowledge and in related inventive experience are two factors that affect the scope of the patents that firms develop the theoretical predictions elaborated in this paper are supported by an empirical examination of a longitudinal sample of firms in the photonics industry

short term optimal wind power generation capacity in liberalized electricity markets mainly because of environmental concerns and fuel price uncertainties considerable amounts of wind based generation capacity are being added to some deregulated power systems the rapid wind development registered in some countries has essentially been driven by strong subsidizing programs since wind investments are commonly isolated from market signals installed wind capacity can be higher than optimal leading to distortions of the power prices with a consequent loss of social welfare in this work the influence of wind generation on power prices in the framework of a liberalized electricity market has been assessed by means of stochastic simulation techniques the developed methodology allows investigating the maximal wind capacity that would be profitably deployed if wind investments were subject to market conditions only for this purpose stochastic variables determining power prices are accurately modeled a test system resembling the size and characteristics of the german power system has been selected for this study the expected value of the optimal short term wind capacity is evaluated for a considerable number of random realizations of power prices the impact of dispersing the wind capacity over statistical independent wind sites has also been evaluated the simulation results reveal that fuel prices installation and financing costs of wind investments are very influential parameters on the maximal wind capacity that might be accommodated in a market based manner

a review of policy analysis purpose and capabilities of electricity system models abstract the aim of this study is to investigate the ability of electricity system models to provide scenario based insights for policy purposes a framework is built from a review of existing studies of model characteristics and their linkages to model scenario types which are linked to the purpose of policy problem analyses the framework can be used as a tool to structure the examination of electricity system models and guide electricity system model selection and enhancement in light of policy problem driven analyses an illustration of the framework is presented by a review of german electricity model scenario studies the review shows that current models are used for the policy purpose of indicator assessment and instrument comparison by quantification of indicators such as monetary or pollution impacts however they are not suitable to provide the means for option reduction problem exploration and political or societal paradigm change exploration as the endogenous model structure for these is missing a particular lack of endogenous treatment was found for renewable technology capacity change and policies learning and productivity growth based technological change socio political technical interactions and limited demonstrated use of uncertainty treatment techniques

electoral competition in heterogeneous districts this paper considers a model of elections in which parties compete simultaneously for multiple districts i show that if districts are heterogeneous then a unique two party equilibrium exists under plurality rule in which further entry is deterred the equilibrium requires that parties choose noncentrist policy platforms and not converge to the ideal policy of the median voter these characteristics are consistent with empirical observation in contrast to those of single district models necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the equilibrium are then characterized and related to duverger s law the existence of multiple party equilibria in this environment is also considered

academic research underlying industrial innovations there has been no systematic study of the characteristics of the universities and academic researchers that seem to have contributed most to industrial innovation nor do we know how such academic research has been funded this paper based on data obtained from sixty six firms in seven major manufacturing industries and from over two hundred academic researchers sheds new light on the sources characteristics and financing of academic research underlying industrial innovation the findings should be of interest to economists concerned with technological change and to policymakers attempting to increase the economic payoff from the nation s academic research copyright 1995 by mit press

global and domestic utilization of industrial relevant science patent citation analysis of science technology interactions and knowledge flows abstract the development of science based technologies may draw heavily on codified and tacit outputs from both domestic research bases and foreign sources having a view of the scientific underpinnings of these technical innovations and related knowledge diffusion and utilization processes especially those concerning public financed basic research is of major importance to policymakers nowadays some of those scientific and technical inputs are pivotal to technical inventions and are acknowledged as such by explicit references citations to related research papers in the reference list on the corresponding patents this case study deals with citations to dutch authored research papers on uspto patents granted during the period 1987 1996 results of the citation analysis reveal several important features of contributions made by the dutch science base to dutch invented and or foreign invented patents such as 1 a marked overall increase of patent citations to dutch research papers and 2 significant differences between domestic and foreign citation patterns where 3 domestic citation links are dominated by author inventor self citations and patents originating from the large r d intensive multinational firms such as philips these findings provide new empirical evidence that patent citation analysis produces systemic quantitative data providing strategic background information regarding nation specific and sector specific factors in domestic and cross border science technology linkages and knowledge flows

an economic model of representative democracy this paper develops an approach to the study of democratic policy making where politicians are selected by the people from those citizens who present themselves as candidates for public office the approach has a number of attractive features first it is a conceptualization of a pure form of representative democracy in which government is by as well as of the people second the model is analytically tractable being able to handle multidimensional issue and policy spaces very naturally third it provides a vehicle for answering normative questions about the performance of representative democracy

spatial equilibrium with entry this paper examines spatial equilibrium in political competition when established parties choose their platforms competitively while rationally anticipating entry of a vote maximizing third party the resulting equilibrium is substantially different from the hotelling median equilibrium established parties are spatially separated and third parties will generally lose the election this provides one theoretical explanation for the stability of two party systems namely that non cooperative behavior between established parties can effectively prevent third parties from winning

science dependence of technologies evidence from inventions and their inventors abstract articulating a compelling economic rationale to justify investments in research by definition furthest removed from direct immediate economic benefit is perhaps one of chief challenges of r d managers policy makers and science analysts in the years ahead although several innovation studies and surveys have provided some convincing empirical evidence of impacts and benefits of research to technical progress there is still an urgent need for comprehensive models reliable data and analytical tools to describe and monitor links between r d and industrial innovation in more detail as for the role of scientific and engineering research in the innovation process this paper reports on the findings of a novel methodology to increase our understanding of the contribution of research efforts to successful technical inventions the approach is based on a nation wide mail survey amongst inventors working in the corporate sector and the public research sector in the netherlands the inventors inside information regarding their patented inventions and related technological innovations on the market provided a range of quantitative data on the importance of the underpinning research activities statistical models attempting to explain the degree of science dependence of the inventions identify a range of relevant variables covering the inventor s own capabilities and previous r d achievements external information sources as well as the inventor s r d environment in general some 20 of the private sector innovations turned out to be partially based on public sector research furthermore citations in patents referring to basic research literature were found to be invalid indictors of a technology s science dependence

quantifying the long term economic benefits of european electricity system integration abstract this paper aims to quantify the long term economic benefits that arise from an increasing integration of the pan european electricity system by means of comparing model based decarbonization scenarios developed with the model limes eu it explicitly accounts for the interplay between transmission infrastructure and renewable generation capacity expansion we confirm earlier findings that on aggregate pan european transmission capacity expansion constitutes a no regret option for integrating increasing shares of variable renewables it leads to positive social returns on investment in all mitigation scenarios under analysis however the reduction in total discounted system costs stemming from transmission capacity expansion is modest in magnitude over the period 2010 2050 it reaches a maximum of 3 5 for a case with massive expansion compared to one in which the status quo remains in technical terms this means that the optimum is rather flat and taking into account regional and local benefits and distributional aspects could alter the evaluation of the economic benefits a crucial finding is that the configuration of pan european transmission infrastructure and the importance of specific country connections i e a southern versus a northern solution hinges on the relative development of specific investment costs for solar and wind technologies over the next decades

the german energy transition modeling competition and substitution between nuclear power and renewable energy technologies abstract this paper studies some quantitative aspects of the energy transition in germany the energiewende which envisages the complete abandonment of nuclear power and a strong reliance on photovoltaic and wind energy for electricity provision the major aim is to shed light on and measure with indirect tools the possible social effects on competition and substitution dynamics characterizing such transition in doing so an analysis on the innovation diffusion framework is proposed through the application of two diffusion models for a duopolistic competition unrestricted and standard ucrcd to the annual time series of consumption of nuclear and renewables wind and solar energy in germany in order to test empirically the presence of such substitution effect the obtained results confirm this conjecture and show that renewables have exerted a significant and measurable effect in determining the observed decline of nuclear power consumption in particular we find that the diffusion of renewables wind and solar is characterized by a high within word of mouth testifying the widespread belief of germans towards the energy transition while the parallel diffusion of nuclear power is characterized by a highly negative cross word of mouth due to the competing role exerted by renewables

academic research and industrial innovation the purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which technological innovations in various industries have been based on recent academic research and the time lags between the investment in recent academic research projects and the industrial utilization of their findings because no attempt to my knowledge has been made to estimate the social rate of return from academic research we also make some rough and tentative estimates of this sort while the results are subject to many limitations discussed below they should be of interest to public policy makers concerned with science and technology as well as to

in search of the european paradox an international comparison of europe s scientific performance and knowledge flows in information and communication technologies research abstract this article deals with the scientific performance of the european union eu in what is now perhaps the most important enabling technology worldwide information and communication technologies ict the performance measures are based on the stock and flows of scientific knowledge embodied in research papers published in international scientific and technical journals quantitative data derived from these papers are used to examine and compare the performance of the eu science base with the us and japan two leading scientific nations in ict research and major competitors in ict industries these bibliometric indicators characterize and compare these three ict research bases in terms of research output international scientific quality transnational knowledge flows and domestic and international cooperation patterns the analysis focuses on the key issue whether or not these data bear evidence of the perceived european paradox which is among others characterized by a strong eu public sector science base coupled to a relatively weak r d performance of eu firms the findings provide empirical confirmation for the existence of this paradox in both ict research domains under investigation computers and data processing and telecommunications

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

where do all the windmills go influence of the institutional setting on the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation abstract promoting renewable energy sources is one policy response to climate change not only is there currently a debate over the best policy instrument it is also discussed whether the renewable energy production should be expanded centralized at locations with the highest production potential or decentralized close to load it is yet not fully understood what influences the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation i assess the effect of subsidy scheme and market design on the spatial distribution of wind energy installations by comparing a feed in tariffs versus market premiums and b uniform versus nodal pricing the analysis is based on theoretical considerations and using a six node test model that reflects the consumption and renewable resource distribution in several countries and regions the institutional setting has great influence on the spatial distribution and resulting system costs with uniform pricing a market premium only leads to a more decentralized expansion of renewable energy production than a tariff when sites share similar wind conditions spatially more distributed expansion of wind power performs better in terms of total costs and share of wind power in final demand when networks are restricted

status and perspectives of renewable energy policy and deployment in the european union what is needed to reach the 2020 targets abstract this article evaluates the status of current res deployment policies and barriers in the eu 27 member states and compares it to the required to meet the 2020 targets the evaluation relies strongly on the quantitative deployment status and policy effectiveness indicators european res deployment and policy has progressed strongly in recent years but the growth here has been mainly driven by effective policies in a small or medium number of top runner countries across europe the highest average policy effectiveness over six years was reached for onshore wind 4 2 biofuels 3 6 and biomass electricity 2 7 while in the heat sector all technologies score below 2 comparing the recent progress to the required growth for meeting the 2020 target it appears that some countries largely exceed the interim targets of the res directive 2009 28 ec despite this europe will need additional policy effort to reach the 2020 target critical success factors include implementing effective and efficient policies that attract sufficient investments reducing administrative and grid related barriers especially in currently less advanced countries upgrading the power grid infrastructure dismantling financial barriers in the heat sector realising sustainability standards for biomass and lowering energy demand through increased energy efficiency efforts

on the economics of renewable energy sources abstract with the global expansion of renewable energy re technologies the provision of optimal re policy packages becomes an important task we review pivotal aspects regarding the economics of renewables that are relevant to the design of an optimal re policy many of which are to date unresolved we do so from three interrelated perspectives that a meaningful public policy framework for inquiry must take into account first we explore different social objectives justifying the deployment of re technologies and review model based estimates of the economic potential of re technologies i e their socially optimal deployment level second we address pivotal market failures that arise in the course of implementing the economic potential of re sources in decentralized markets third we discuss multiple policy instruments curing these market failures our framework reveals the requirements for an assessment of the relevant options for real world decision makers in the field of re policies this review makes it clear that there are remaining white areas on the knowledge map concerning consistent and socially optimal re policies

mitigating factors assessing the costs of reducing ghg emissions abstract the debate over the costs of ghg emission reduction has become more complex recently as disagreements over the existence of economic and environmental double dividends have been added to discussions over the existence of a negative cost potential we argue that basic assumptions about economic efficiency the sub optimality of the baseline and the rate of technical change are more important than model structure and we underline the importance of the timing of decisions for determining the costs moreover the use of a single baseline no policy scenario and several policy intervention scenarios may be fundamentally misleading in the longer term simply because the very idea of a business as usual scenario is deeply problematic ultimately the debate turns on political judgments about the desirability of alternative development paths

what are the most promising conduits for foreign knowledge inflows innovation networks in the chinese pharmaceutical industry we study innovation networks in emerging markets where foreign actors have been identified as key sources of knowledge spillovers as well as progenitors of industry clusters focusing on connectivity as a channel for international knowledge sourcing we widen our lens beyond mnes to include critical innovative actors such as research institutions i e universities and research centers we examine the geographic dispersion of co inventor networks generated by us patents associated with the chinese pharmaceutical industry previous research has highlighted the role of organizationally driven mne networks as enablers of foreign knowledge inflows to less developed countries however our results emphasize the critical role of individually motivated networks arising from advanced economy research institutions in connecting china to global knowledge networks

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

science and the diffusion of knowledge abstract scientists social scientists and politicians frequently credit basic science with stimulating technological innovation and with it economic growth despite a substantial body of research investigating this general relationship relatively little empirical attention has been given to understanding the mechanisms that might generate this linkage this paper considers whether more rapid diffusion of knowledge brought about by the norm of publication might account for part of this effect we identify the importance of publication by comparing the patterns of citations from future patents to three groups of focal patents i those that reference scientific peer reviewed publications ii those that reference commercial non scientific publications and iii those that reference neither our analyses strongly implicate publication as an important mechanism for accelerating the rate of technological innovation patents that reference published material whether peer reviewed or not receive more citations primarily because their influence diffuses faster in time and space

the market value of variable renewables the effect of solar wind power variability on their relative price this paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy vre the inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that vre generators receive on the market market value during windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices because the drop is larger with more installed capacity the market value of vre falls with higher penetration rate this study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration and how policies and prices affect the market value quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies regression analysis of market data and the calibrated model of the european electricity market emma we find the value of wind power to fall from 110 of the average power price to 50 80 as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 of total electricity consumption for solar power similarly low value levels are reached already at 15 penetration hence competitive large scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate

the social shaping of the national science base abstract innovation studies confirm de tocqueville s prediction that continuous technical change in business firms in modern society would require the development in close proximity of publicly funded basic research and associated training the rate and direction of the development of a country s science base is strongly influenced by its level of economic development and the composition of its economic and social activities in other words it is socially shaped

minor candidates as kingmakers we consider a sequential entry model with three candidates who cannot commit to any policy announcement during the campaign the study focuses on how a minor candidate who wins only when unopposed influences the electoral outcome we show that unless the condorcet winner i e the winner in every pairwise vote coincides with the grand winner i e the winner of the three candidate competition the minor candidate is a kingmaker in the sense that his preferred rival wins regardless of the order of the entry decisions to influence the outcome the minor candidate could either i enter strategically without any chance to win or ii enter if and only if the condorcet winner already has entered

the impact of renewables on electricity prices in germany an estimation based on historic spot prices in the years 2011 2013 abstract germany s public opinion and media usually attribute increasing electricity prices to the high share of renewables in the german power system but average electricity prices at the european energy exchange dropped during the last years due to an excess of renewable energy this study uses historic market data in order to quantify the effect of renewables on prices historic demand and supply curves from 2011 to 2013 have been used to reconstruct electricity prices under the assumption that no wind and pv would be available the analysis reveals an astonishingly high increase of market prices up to 5 29 ct kwh due to a lack of non renewable power capacities in 2013 the available conventional capacity would not have been able to cover the demand during 269 hours the estimated maximum deficit of 5 6 gw is in good agreement to data published by the german grid operators the discussion of the origin of this deficit leads to the conclusion that the current situation has not been caused by renewables the liberalization of the european energy market established investment risks that hindered required investment a long time before the renewables boomed

renewable electricity generation in germany a meta analysis of mitigation scenarios german energy policy targets envision a share of electricity from renewable energy sources res e of at least 80 in 2050 how can the transformation of the german electricity sector be achieved and at what costs this paper addresses these questions by means of a meta analysis of 10 recent model based mitigation scenarios for germany it turns out that the scenarios exploit the three basic strategic options of increasing the share of res e domestic res e generation electricity demand reductions and res e imports to substantially different extents domestic res e generation increases in all scenarios particularly from onshore and offshore wind scenarios that rely heavily on reducing electricity demand require a relatively low expansion of domestic res e generation despite detailed technical analyses insights on the costs of the transformation remain limited a discussion of underlying scenario assumptions reveals that it is unclear whether i res e and system integration technology development will be as cost competitive as postulated ii implicitly assumed institutional requirements will be realized and iii relevant actors in the transformation process will be incentivized accordingly therefore future research should pursue a thorough assessment of strategic options for transforming the german electricity system that consistently integrates technologies institutions and actors

knowledge flows in the solar photovoltaic industry insights from patenting by taiwan korea and china abstract in this paper we extend work previously undertaken in industries such as semiconductor and flat panel displays to investigate knowledge flows from advanced countries us japan and europe to catch up follower countries taiwan korea and china this time in the emergent solar photovoltaic industry the solar photovoltaic industry is of particular interest in that it is poised between exploitation of first generation crystalline silicon technologies and new thin film and organic compound technologies thus providing distinct sources of knowledge flow as measured by patent citations and linkage for this study we deploy a new database of 19 105 solar photovoltaic patents taken out by taiwan korea and china at the uspto over the 24 years 1984 2008 and analyse the knowledge flows revealed in these patents using a set of 12 international patent classification technology categories that we constructed we demonstrate commonalities in patterns of knowledge flow between solar photovoltaic and earlier industries but also suggestive differences such as rising dependence of the catch up countries on their own intra national knowledge generation and flow indicating their shift from imitation to innovation

the roles of science in technological innovation abstract one of the central issues in science policy during the past decade has been the extent to which the national levels of expenditure on scientific education and research influence the standard of living this paper provides empirical evidence to show that the pay off from this investment in science is more complex and indirect than previously supposed

renewable electricity production costs a framework to assist policy makers decisions on price support abstract despite recent progress the production costs for renewable electricity remain above those for conventional power expectations of continuous reductions in production costs typically underpin governments policies for financial support they often draw on the technology focused versions of the experience curve model this paper discusses how national contextual factors also have a strong influence on production costs such as geographic infrastructural institutional and resource factors as technologies mature and as they reach significant levels of diffusion nationally sustained increases in production costs might be recorded due to these nationally contextual factors poorly accounted for in policy making decisions for price support the paper suggests an analytical framework for a more comprehensive understanding of production costs based on this it recommends that the evolution of specific cost levels and factors be monitored to locate sources of changes the paper also suggests policy instruments that governments may use to facilitate cost decreases whenever possible the application of the framework is illustrated for the diffusion of wind power in spain during the past three decades

universities and industrially relevant science towards measurement models and indicators of entrepreneurial orientation abstract which university departments engaged in industrially relevant science are likely candidates to become entrepreneurial at present there are neither measurement models nor leading indicators that can answer such questions at an international comparative level this paper introduces concepts theory and a measurement model for identifying the early stages of a university s enterpreneurial orientation within a quantitative analytical framework this approach focuses specifically on university industry interactions in which the connectivity between academic science and industrial research is captured and measured empirically in terms of 1 public private co authored research articles and 2 references citations within corporate research articles to university research articles the paper examines a range of country level and institutional determinants of industrially relevant science across 18 research areas of significant industrial interest and at two different levels of analysis research systems of oecd countries and large sets of research universities within those countries the results of these large scale analyses along with those of a case study dealing with european universities active in the field of immunology research suggest that many structural factors determine university industry interactions and the potential for entrepreneurial orientation the two connectivity indicators appear to be of minor significance compared to a university s country of location and the magnitude of its research activities in industrially relevant fields of science

a model of political competition with citizen candidates the authors develop a model of electoral competition in which citizens choose whether or not to run as candidates a winner implements her favorite policy the equilibrium number of candidates depends negatively on the cost of running and positively on the benefits of winning for some parameter values all equilibria under plurality rule have exactly two candidates whose positions are distinct two candidate elections are more likely under plurality rule than under a runoff system the candidates positions are less differentiated under a runoff system there exist equilibria under both systems in which some candidates have no chance of winning

patent statistics in the age of globalisation new legal procedures new analytical methods new economic interpretation abstract patent analysis seems to become more difficult in the age of globalisation starting from microlevel observations it is evident that multinational enterprises pursue different technological marketing and strategic aims in effect they cover world markets in a distinctly different manner with patent intellectual property this article in good economic tradition starts with consideration of recent microlevel patent behaviour in telecommunications before new macroeconomic procedures to measure technical change are outlined the new challenges to patent statistics comprise the assignment of countries to patent documents of multinational firms the appropriate use of economic filters in comparing patent statistics from various patent offices the fitting of the new international patent procedures offered by the amended patent cooperation treaty pct to national statistics the assignment of patent applications in case of withdrawn country destinations and the estimation of time series if most recent data sets are incomplete we propose consistent workable adjustments to patent statistics that overcome the above mentioned biases which we denote the triad patent model for measuring technical progress in the proper economic sense first applications deal with the assessment of the pace of technical change in major countries up until 1995 in conclusion we discuss problems for future research the main policy implication is that macroeconomic patent statistics can correct for the effects of global knowledge production indeed as these are not disruptive but rather limited and well accountable

assessment of transformation strategies for the german power sector under the uncertainty of demand development and technology availability abstract the long term energy strategy issued by the german government in 2010 and 2011 embraces a substantial reduction of co 2 emissions and high shares of renewable energy in electricity production along with energy efficiency improvements and an accelerated nuclear phase out while several studies illustrate scenarios reaching these targets there are substantial uncertainties pertaining to key assumptions particularly long term electricity demand and the large scale availability of offshore wind and carbon capture and storage ccs this paper explores conditions under which model based scenarios for the german electricity sector comply with the official targets for co 2 emission reductions and renewable shares we apply the energy system model limes d which allows for a joint optimization of generation and transmission capacities the results indicate that reducing electricity demand plays a crucial role for attaining the government s targets scenarios for which either offshore wind or ccs is not available show an even stronger need for a decreasing electricity demand to reach the targets and a different pattern of transmission capacity expansion than is the case with full technology availability hence a broad technology portfolio could in turn hedge against future power demand increases that may challenge the joint attainment of the german decarbonization and renewable energy targets