The German energy transition as a regime shift

•The German energy transition is framed via the resilience concept.•A shift from a fossil-nuclear energy regime to a renewable regime has occurred.•Challenges for increasing the renewable regime's resilience are identified.•Advantages compared to other conceptual frameworks are discussed.

In this paper, I use the resilience framework to interpret the project of transforming the German energy system into a renewable energy sources (RES)-based system, the so-called Energiewende, as a regime shift. This regime shift comprises several transformations, which are currently altering the technological, political and economic system structure. To build my argument, I first sketch how technological, political and economic developments reduced the resilience of the conventional fossil-nuclear energy regime and created a new RES-regime. Second, I depict recent changes in German public discourse and energy policy as the shift to the RES-regime. Third, I highlight the challenges involved with increasing the resilience of the RES-regime. In particular, sufficient resilience of the electricity transmission grid appears to be crucial for facilitating the transformation of the whole energy system.