Position paper on the Renewable Energy Act 2021 and Offshore Wind Energy Act

Converting the energy system to a sustainable energy supply with a high percentage of renewable energy places great demands on the regulatory framework and the future interaction of stakeholders on the energy market. On 23 September 2020, the draft bill for the 2021 amendment to the German Renewable Energy Act was passed by the cabinet and introduced into the parliamentary process.

The management board of the association for the support of the Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster Agency (EEHH e.V.) has worked together with representatives of the financing and law forum to draft a position paper on the text for the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) and the Offshore Wind Energy Act (WindSeeG).

The draft bill contains some positive reforms from EEHH’s point of view. In the area of onshore wind, for example, these include the lifting of restrictions in the grid development area in the north, the introduction of a “south quota”, the planned state reporting duty and the increasing of the expansion target for offshore wind energy use to 20 GW for the year 2030.

However, there are also numerous reforms that could and in part also will impede both the expansion and the better integration of renewable energy. For the most part, these are regulations that threaten the economic viability of RE farms, such as the discontinuation of the “six hour rule” or the lack of a transition regulation for old farms that will drop out of the Renewable Energy Act shortly and could lead to negative net construction in the case of a large-scale dismantling of farms, despite the newly installed farms. The discontinuation of levies and charges for RE electricity in the areas of self-supply (photovoltaic farms in particular here) and sector coupling is inevitable from EEHH’s point of view.

After the numerous amendments to the Renewable Energy Act, EEHH is advocating a fundamental energy law reform in the medium term. Here it is following the recommendations of the Foundation for Environmental Energy Law, which is calling for the drafting of an Energy Code [Energiegesetzbuch]. Furthermore, a redesign of the electricity market should be discussed in this context, so that the expansion of renewable energy and the coupling of sectors are focused on and a higher CO₂ price can be achieved by reducing the quantity of emissions in the energy sector, which would result in a realistic ratio between the value of the renewable energy electricity and conventional energy sources such as coal and gas.

Read the full position paper here:

https://www.erneuerbare-energien-hamburg.de/de/service/downloads.html

Contact:

EEHH GmbH
Constantin Lange, Project Management Innovation & Research
Email: constantin.lange@eehh.de
Phone: 040/694573-14