Germany has scrapped a two-tier permitting system that allowed community projects to participate in the country’s onshore wind auctions without a construction licence.
All onshore auction participants in next two years will now need a licence to build a project ahead of the tender after the country’s parliament voted to change the rules.
Last year, community developers were exempt from the rule and secured all but 100MW in Germany’s 2.8GW onshore wind auctions.
However, community projects have until 2021 to be built and the lack of a construction licence raised industry concerns about a possible slowdown in development towards the end of the decade.
The vote in the Bundestag now extends by two years a provisional ruling that had stipulated the need for construction licences for participants in the two auctions in 2018.
German wind energy industry association BWE head Hermann Albers said: “The extension is an important sign for the sector as it will clearly increase planning security.
“Policymakers now need to adopt other commitments to reach the country’s climate protection goals such as additional auction volumes in 2019 and 2020.”
In its coalition agreement hammered out earlier this year, Germany’s new government pledged to support an as yet unspecified amount of new offshore wind capacity and 4GW each of onshore wind and solar power to help the country save eight to 10 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
Image: Pixabay
Berlin curbs community benefits
By EBS