Without privilege, small projects have “close to no chance” in renewables auctions

The coalition agreement between Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) would mean that citizens’ energy projects will lose a key advantage in Germany’s renewables auction system, writes Marlies Uken for Zeit Online. The coalition agreement states that only projects that have been green-lighted under the immission control legislation will be able to take part in future auctions. Until now, the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) has allowed citizens’ projects to submit bids without having to obtain a license beforehand, and also granted them a longer implementation period.These enabled them to become "big winners" in the first three rounds of onshore wind auctions. Should citizens’ energy projects lose this privilege, “small initiatives would have close to no chance in the auction process,” writes Uken.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read the CLEW factsheet High hopes and concerns over onshore wind power auctions and From survey to harvest: How to build a wind farm in Germany.