Date: January 09
The Federal Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection (BMWK, for its acronym in German), assured that, if the country wants to achieve 80% renewable production by 2030, it will have to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles, have greater subsidies and a greater participation of the federal states. Therefore, through a statement, the BMWK presented new rules that will further these objectives.
More solar power from rooftops and open spaces
The BMWK stated that, from 2023, systems with full and partial power can be combined. This will make completely covering roofs with solar panels even more worthwhile.
The regression of statutory pay rates until early 2024 will be suspended and then switched to a semi-annual regression. In addition, for large roof systems there will no longer be a minimum self-consumption rate outside of the tender. That ensures profitability.
“Area configuration for open space systems is spreading: shoulders along highways and railways are being significantly widened, both old and new area configuration are allowed in deprived areas, and new Categories such as agricultural, floating and wasteland PV are being added. These will be integrated into the tender for photovoltaic open spaces. Certain agricultural PV systems and peatland PV systems will receive a bonus in tenders,” explains the BMWK.
To accelerate the targets, the maximum bid size for the tender dates will be increased from 20 to 100 megawatts, making it possible to scale up existing systems.
In addition, the 70% rule is canceled for all new systems up to and including 25 kW of installed capacity that had been put into operation after September 14, 2022 and from January 1, 2023 for existing photovoltaic systems up to 7 kW. of installed capacity included.
Offers only from 1 MW (before 750 kW)
There will be exceptions to the tenders for community solar energy systems up to 6 MW with compensation with the average of the highest values of the previous year’s offer that were still awarded.
Electricity improvements to tenants will also appear: the cap (500 MW per year) will be lifted, the 100 kW limit for system size will no longer apply, as will the EEG surcharge. In addition, standardization and digitization will simplify and speed up grid connection for installed capacity of up to 30 kilowatts, which will benefit private operators of rooftop PV systems.
In the case of small renewable energy systems with a power of up to 30 kilowatts, it is becoming an exception that the grid operator has to be present when the connection is made since, thanks to the simplified grid connection, systems can be put into operation more quickly.
With these measures, the aim of the BMWK is to advance the photovoltaic expansion in buildings and open spaces with more measures.
Harvesting more wind
Regarding wind energy, an expansion on land will be sought with an area target of 2% for all federal states. Thus, these states will be obliged to make available enough areas for the expansion of this clean energy.
Wind and solar projects of citizen energy companies up to a size of 18 MW (wind) and 6 MW (photovoltaic open spaces) will no longer have to participate in tenders from 2023; citizen energy projects will then receive remuneration even without a call for bids.
According to the BMWK, the development of locations with weaker winds, especially in southern Germany, is becoming significantly more attractive. Therefore, the reference performance model will be improved for locations with little wind.
The Federal Network Agency will now have the opportunity to adjust the maximum value for tenders if raw material prices for wind turbines increase by more than 15%.
Expansion of the wind in the sea
Expansion targets increased significantly to at least 30 gigawatts by 2030, at least 40 gigawatts by 2035, and at least 70 gigawatts by 2045 and anchored in WindSeeG. At the same time, the bidding volumes increased massively.
The BMWK explains that, in addition to the tendering of areas that have already been previously surveyed, areas that have not yet been centrally inspected will also be tendered in the future and new tender designs will be introduced for this.
In the case of centrally pre-examined areas, bidders will be awarded the contract on the basis of qualitative criteria and a payment offer. A dynamic procedure will also be introduced for areas that have not been centrally pre-screened. That is, if several bidders offer 0 cents for areas that have not been centrally pre-examined, a dynamic procedure will be initiated. The bidder with the highest willingness to pay will then be selected.
Proceeds will flow towards offshore grid surcharge, nature conservation and eco-friendly fishing, thus contributing to lower electricity costs and increasing acceptance of expansion by strengthening livelihood interests of nature and fishing.
The WindSeeG amendment will speed up all procedures and shorten contract awards by several years. Grid connection will be awarded sooner, planning and approval procedures will be streamlined, and tests will be packaged.
At the end of 2022, the federal government, the federal states and the transmission system operators signed the offshore implementation agreement. The core of the agreement is the agreement on concrete schedules for defined milestones regarding the start and completion of the relevant planning and approval processes, as well as the start of construction and commissioning of offshore grid connection systems. .
With these and other measures, Germany hopes to eliminate bureaucratic processes and increase the deployment of clean energy throughout the territory.
Source: Review Energy
