“Tenant electricity support brings Energiewende to the inner cities”

The federal cabinet’s approval of a bill for supporting tenant electricity models in Germany will “make tenants directly participate at energy transition”, economy minister Brigitte Zypries said in a press release by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWi). Owners of private houses so far were mostly able to benefit from pv installations on their roofs, but tenants now could also use this sort of locally produced power at favourable rates if their landlords put up pv installations on their building, Zypries explained. The government was going to introduce a “tenant electricity premium” of up to 3.8 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), which would “speed up electricity generation from solar energy”, Zypries said.  

Stefan Kapferer, head of German utility association BDEW, said tenant electricity in general was a “reasonable component” for increasing the acceptance of energy transition. The BMWi’s bill, however, was going to “relieve some privileged households from grid fees while at the same time others have to pay more”. The majority of German tenants was not going to benefit from the law, Kapferer said.

Find the BMWi’s press release in German here and the BDEW’s press release in German here.

See the CLEW dossier The people’s Energiewende for more information.