Industry: German Govt’s 2030 Target Achievable Only with More Offshore Wind

German offshore wind industry has urged the country’s government to ramp up its offshore wind energy game if it wants to achieve the goal of covering 65% of Germany’s power generation with renewable energies by 2030. 

Several German offshore wind industry organisations issued a join press release, stating that the German government is doing too little to achieve the 2030 goal, with no concrete steps taken since the formation of government in March 2018.

As stipulated in the coalition agreement, additional tenders for offshore wind energy and an increase in the offshore expansion paths are needed as soon as possible, alongside a rapid increase of the expansion paths for all renewables. The 65% target must be credibly supported by a quantity structure for the expansion, the industry said.

“The standstill in energy policy of the recent months must be stopped. We call on the Federal Government to decide on the special contribution for offshore wind energy immediately after the summer break. Otherwise, the self-defined climate targets cannot be achieved,” explained the industry representatives. “The industry also agrees with the transmission system operators on this point.”

The expansion of offshore wind energy is currently proceeding according to plan until 2020 and the German government must act now if it takes the 65% target seriously, the industry said, adding that this is also in line with recent decisions at European level that renewable energies should account for 32% of the EU’s total energy consumption by 2030.

The expansion targets must be raised across all renewable technologies, with an expansion of at least 20GW required for offshore wind energy in Germany by 2030, since the existing expansion target of 15GW by 2030 does not meet the Federal Government’s new targets.

By 2035, at least 30GW of offshore wind capacity must be installed, the organisations pointed out.

The additional calls for tenders for renewable energies decided in the coalition agreement and originally planned before the summer must also be implemented. In the case of offshore wind energy, the course should be set quickly to introduce additional tenders in 2019 and 2020. This should include a total volume of at least 1.5GW in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. These should be feasible through the use of free grid connection capacities.

A higher expansion volume in the offshore wind industry is also of great importance for employment security and value creation in Germany, the industry representatives emphasised.

Furthermore, the Federal Government should give priority to the expansion of the large transmission grids and embody the many existing proposals for grid optimisation in law, according to the offshore wind industry, which further said that regulatory hurdles for further coupling of the sectors should be removed as soon as possible.

The government has been called to take action on the aforementioned matters by AGOW (Offshore Wind Energy Working Group), Bundesverband Windenergie e.V. (BWE), Stiftung OFFSHORE-WINDENERGIE (German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation), VDMA Power Systems, and WAB.