Government coalition reaches deal to boost renewable energy capacity

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and its Social Democrat (SPD) partners have agreed to keep their promise to speed up the expansion of renewable power installations, ending months of wrangling, reports Thorsten Severin for Reuters. The German government agreed in January to plan for additional tenders for 4 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaics and 4 GW of onshore wind, on top of regular tenders. According to media reports, the government plans 1 GW each for wind and solar in 2019, followed by 1.4 GW each in 2020 and 1.6 GW each in 2021. The coalition partners also plan to set up a working group to debate measures to increase public acceptance of onshore wind projects, say the reports.
Engineering association VDMA Power Systems and utility association BDEW both said they welcomed the end of the standstill in energy policy because companies needed a clear perspective for the coming years. But the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation lamented the lack of provisions for wind power generation at sea. It said Germany could not reach its target of increasing the share of renewables in power consumption to 65 percent by 2030 without additional offshore projects. Environmental NGO WWF Germany also said current plans for the roll-out of renewables fell far short of what would be necessary to implement the energy transition and do justice to the Paris Climate Agreement.     

Read the article in English here.

Find the VDMA press release here, the WWF press release here and the BDEW statement here (all in German).