Societal acceptance for the political goals of Germany’s Energiewende is heavily impacted by its distributional consequences as well as private households‘ individual conceptions of justice. The empirical investigation of this relationship is the main contribution of this article, which summarizes the results of the research project AKZEPTANZ financed by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). From our empirical evidence we can draw three main conclusions regarding private households‘ preferences for distributing the cost of the Energiewende. First, there is a strong preference for the ability-to-pay principle in order to finance green electricity. Second, cost uncertainty makes the ability-to-pay principle less attractive. Third, subsidizing investments into energy efficiency may lead to counterproductive reactions. © 2017, List-Gesellschaft e.V.