News agencies such as DW and other renewable energy news websites have reported that the German government has introduced a set of legislative measures to further accelerate the installation of PV systems and wind turbines. Dubbed “the EEG Easter Package”, these measures were presented to the coalition government on April 6 by Robert Habeck, Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
The German government now aims to have renewables account for 80% of its energy mix by 2030 and complete the full transition to renewables by 2035. To reach these targets, municipal governments will be brought on board to support the development of the existing PV and wind projects. In particular, there is a push to allocate 2% of the country’s land to the development of wind projects. Land-use rights along with other regulations and laws will be amended to facilitate the installation of renewable generation systems in new areas. Furthermore, project planning and approval procedures will be streamlined in order to speed up the setup of generation assets and the expansion of the country’s power grid system.
The proposed PV and wind generation targets under this package are 115GW and 215GW respectively by 2030. This means that on an annual basis, domestic PV generation has to increase by about 22GW, and domestic wind generation has to increase by about 10GW.
Moreover, the annual capacity quota for renewable auctions will be raised, while “community PV projects” that are no more than 6MW in scale will be allowed to set up without participating in an auction. To provide more area for utility-scale projects, agricultural land and marshland will be made available. With regard to the expansion of PV generation capacity, the German government said that the growth will be distributed evenly between rooftop projects and projects in open spaces.
Habeck stated that the EEG Easter Package contains numerous incentives for the development of PV projects. For instance, the government now wants to halt the step-down of the feed-in tariff until 2024. Afterward, the reduction will take place every half-year period. Currently, the reduction occurs every quarter. Furthermore, there could be bonuses or revised feed-in tariff rates for agrivoltaic and floating PV projects because of the high costs associated with their development. Additionally, households and communities that contribute renewable energy into the grid systems could receive rebates and additional funding. Habeck stressed that the government wants to provide “adequate funding” for rooftop PV systems that feed all of their electricity into the grid system.
The EEG Easter Package is still a draft and will need to be passed by the Federal Parliament and the Council of Federal States. Also, the Federal Government will have to negotiate with local communities in to order to obtain more land for projects. The land-use issues are expected to be addressed in the follow-up “Summer Package” that is being formulated by the Cabinet.
It should be pointed out that the Green Party controls the Ministry of Economic and Climate Protection, the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Agriculture. The Green Party called the EEG Easter Package “the biggest comprehensive energy package in two decades”. BSW Solar, which is the country’s PV industry association, wholly approves the package but said that the government still has to implement concrete policies such as support for self-consumption of PV electricity.
Habeck, who is a member of the Green Party, stated that the package will contribute to a doubling of the percentage of renewables in the domestic gross electricity consumption within less than a decade. It will also lead to a tripling of the pace of renewable installation on land, water, and roofs. Habeck added that the government has been ramping up its efforts in developing an energy strategy in the recent months, and the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict this late February has only heighten the sense of urgency. Hence, the EEG Easter Package will play a major role in helping Germany to achieve energy and economic security as well as climate neutrality.
The Free Democratic Party, which is also part of the coalition government, is less enthusiastic about the package. Lukas Köhler, vice chairman of the party’s parliamentary caucus, told DW that even though achieving climate neutrality by 2035 is “desirable”, it is “practically impossible” for Germany. Habeck believes that pursuing energy transition will create economic benefits that can convince the skeptics. He pointed out that municipalities with access to renewable energy are attracting businesses and investments, including those related to manufacturing.