Karsten Bourwieg is a lawyer. He began his career in the energy industry as a lawyer and legal counsel at Trianel Energie, a energy trading and procurement company for municipal utilities. With the advent of energy regulation at the end of 2005, he became head of the Energy Law Division of the Federal Network Agency in Bonn. Since June 2017, he has chaired Ruling Chamber 8, which primarily decides on revenue caps for electricity grid operators and examines the costs of power plant reserves in Germany.