'Missed opportunity' | German parliament scraps 'return option' for unbuilt wind
German wind sector laments sudden vanishing of possibility to grant successful bidders from onshore tenders in past years chance to hand back capacity secured in auctions
Germany’s wind industry was greatly disappointed of a last-minute move by the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, to scrap a government plan to grant successful bidders from onshore wind tenders in the past two years the chance to hand back capacity secured in auctions.
Germany’s wind energy federation (BWE) lamented that while the measure still had found its way into a version of the amendment during a climate and energy committee hearing – and had been welcomed at large by the wind sector – it was missing in the final version approved by the Bundestag.
After a long time of undersubscribed onshore wind tenders, the wind sector in 2021 had started to overcome the lull and in late 2021 and early 2022 finally achieved some oversubscribed auctions again, BWE president Bärbel Heidebroek explained. But the price shock across supply chains triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine then created a toxic mix endangering the economics of already tendered out projects, she added.
"The coalition has consequently presented an amendment to the [legislation], which optionally allows the return of bids from the years 2021 and 2022 in order to immediately put these projects back into tenders,” Heidebroek said.
“This would have significantly improved the probability of the bids being awarded in 2021 and 2022 to also be realised.
“It is therefore completely incomprehensible why the coalition has now dropped its legislative proposal. She missed the opportunity to improve the realisation of bids.”
Winning projects from auctions in 2021 and 2022 with a combined volume of about 5GW have not yet been built, the economics and climate ministry had said when explaining the now scrapped measure.
Parliament did, however, keep two changes to wind energy regulation the BWE stressed as positive.
A clarification in the Wind Energy Area Requirement Act was retained, meaning German states can now provide for higher area contribution values and allocate wind priority areas faster.
Another positive aspect is the ad hoc reintroduction of the possibility of deviating from specifications for night-time noise emissions and for avoiding shadows cast by wind turbines if additional energy can be generated as a result, the BWE said.
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