The German government has passed a bill that introduces a series of changes to its EEG renewable energy laws.
Angela Merkel’s (pictured) Federal Cabinet agreed on Wednesday to the alterations, which mean that citizen energy companies must comply with the same completion deadlines for onshore wind projects that regular developers face.
Legislation means that the change, first proposed in 2018, is now permanently removed from the EEG.
A “decisive…error” in the original law meant that the so-called cooperatives had more time to build projects bid into German auctions leading to “distortions of competition”, said Kerstin Andreae, chairman of renewables group BDEW.
The issue has been widely blamed as a key reason for the slow down in delivery of onshore projects in Germany.
“Citizen energy companies received almost all contracts for the construction of wind farms in the tenders, but numerous projects were not implemented,” said Andreae.
“These exceptions have therefore been suspended since 2018. With the current draft, these are now permanently deleted from the EEG itself.”