How to achieve resource adequacy during Energiewende?

This article focuses on how to ensure resource adequacy in Germany during the transition period away from a conventional towards a renewable based electricity supply system. Sufficient thermal capacity is currently in place, as the market has not seen a full investment cycle since the liberalization in the late 1990s. Renewable production is subsidized with a feed-in tariff reducing running hours of thermal plants significantly. Power plant owners are not responsible for resource adequacy and only keep profitable capacity available. Thermal plants are still required to balance demand and the fluctuating renewable supply. The author formulates a self-selective quantity based capacity market as safety net, which supports the ambitious climate protection targets and ensures resource adequacy. This is achieved by preferring thermal capacity with low carbon dioxide emissions and high load gradients, while assigning accruing costs on a costs-by-cause principle to the non-steerable renewables.