The expansion of renewables has progressed only slowly in recent years, especially in the case of wind power. The federal states show too little space. The traffic light now blows to attack.
The so-called “wind-on-shore” law is now intended to ensure a revival of the recently more than weakening wind expansion. Looking at the past few years, this also seems sorely needed. Although wind power made it to first place in German power generation ahead of lignite for the first time in 2019, the previous heyday of wind expansion was several years ago.
A look at more recent expansion figures shows a clear need for action if you want to even begin to achieve the climate goals you have set yourself.
The previous highs for new construction were between 2014 and 2017 with almost 1640 new systems. Based on the generation capacity, this was an average of 4.6 gigawatts per year. After 2017, a much blacker picture emerged: in 2018, the expansion was already halved and in the three following years not even two gigawatts were achieved.
In comparison, the traffic light plans to add 10 gigawatts of onshore wind energy annually from 2025. The reduced interest of investors in German wind farms was already visible in the tenders. In 2019 in particular, the acceptance rate dropped significantly and at times there were no interested parties for around two thirds of the quantities advertised.
For wind expansion to revive, what is needed above all is the designation of sufficient areas and faster planning and approval procedures. After the traffic light in the Easter package has already underlined the priority of wind power from a legal point of view and permits are also to be simplified, it is a matter of reserving the necessary areas for expansion. The extension in landscape protection areas should no longer be taboo. In addition, the central requirement from the coalition agreement is now to be implemented in order to literally guarantee wind expansion the necessary space to develop: Two percent of the land area should be available for the construction of wind farms.
In many federal states, flat-rate distances between wind turbines and residential buildings have been prescribed for years. A minimum distance of 1000 meters was also part of the Wind Action Plan, which the grand coalition presented in 2019 in response to the misery of wind expansion. Although this should increase acceptance for the expansion, in reality this is simply slowing down the expansion of regenerative energy production in such a densely populated country.
For example, such general distances are observed in NRW, Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt. In Saxony they were also adopted recently and in Thuringia they are at least not off the table yet. The so-called 10H rule in Bavaria particularly stands out here. There, wind turbines must be at least ten times their height away from the nearest residential buildings. So it doesn’t seem surprising that in the Free State over the past few years there has only been an expansion in homeopathic doses. However, Bavaria is far from alone in this. In many federal states there is a clear need to catch up when it comes to wind expansion.
Andreas Fischer has been researching as an economist for energy and climate policy at the German Economic Institute in Cologne since 2019. His focus is on energy supply and the cross-sectoral energy transition.
It makes sense to promote individual types of generation where they have the best potential. But a regenerative energy supply requires a combination of many solutions. Solar and wind energy in particular are not substitutes, but complements and complement each other within the framework of a sustainable energy supply.
According to a study by the Federal Environment Agency in 2019, a general distance regulation of 1000 meters across Germany would reduce the potential for new construction by almost half. If one now assumes that the wind turbines prevented by this would have to be replaced by the continued operation of conventional power plants, this would result in additional emissions of roughly over 70 million tons of CO every year.
That is significantly more than the entire German agriculture emits per year. In addition, there is the renewal of old systems, the so-called repowering, which can also be hindered by general distances. This is also an important part of the expansion, as new systems generate significantly more electricity. Between 2015 and 2021 alone, the generator output of new wind turbines increased by an average of 46 percent.
In order to achieve the targeted two percent, the individual countries should now be given specific specifications as to what percentage of their respective country area must be made available for the expansion. The aim is to achieve the first interim target by 2026 and then to meet the final target from 2032. In the event that these targets are not met, the requirement at federal level should overrule the state-specific distance rules so that they cannot significantly impede the expansion.
There are differences in the individual targets, precisely because of the different potentials in the form of local wind levels, the so-called wind potential. Therefore, the different potentials are taken into account in the allocation.
City states such as Hamburg and Bremen only have to comply with a prescribed value of 0.5 percent, and for large-area states with high potential such as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg, the long-term requirements are 2.2 percent. In this way, the nationwide average of 2 percent can be achieved, but it makes sense to price in different potentials accordingly.
After the first steps in the Easter package, the federal government is going in the right direction with the new plans for wind expansion to enable a successful energy transition at all. It remains to be seen, of course, to what extent the targeted expansion goals can be achieved. With the Federal Government’s ambitious goals, however, it is right and important to send a clear signal now when setting the course and not to endanger the energy transition through the distance rules of the federal states. It is therefore absolutely correct to clearly quantify and demand the space requirement.
A consistent expansion of renewables not only helps to achieve your own sector and climate goals. Even if we will continue to be dependent on imports in the future, this will help to significantly reduce the import quota for energy sources. In Germany, around 70 percent of primary energy requirements are currently covered by imports. This also strengthens Germany as a business and industrial location through the availability of green energy.
These will also be needed at competitive prices in the future. But the corresponding pricing, including suitable incentives for more flexible consumption in times of fluctuating feed-in from sun and wind, still has to be tackled in the future. Here, too, the first real step in a long journey has been taken with the abolition of the EEG surcharge.
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