Germany needs to take urgent action this year to boost offshore wind development, according to five industry organisations.
The groups – BWE, BWO, Stiftung Offshore-Windenergie, VDMA Power Systems and WAB – today called on the government to organise a special tender of at least 1.5GW of offshore capacity in the first quarter of 2019.
They said that in order for the country to meet targets of delivering 65% of electricity from renewables by 2030 at least 20GW of new offshore wind is needed by that year, rising to 30GW by 2035.
Current plans for the sector will not achieve the 2030 clean power goal, they added.
“The current political conditions are slowing down the further positive development of offshore wind energy in Germany,” the organisations said.
A coalition government plan for the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency to prepare a scenario framework for offshore wind of between 15GW and 20GW are “unclear” in terms of concrete policy measures, they said.
“2019 must be the year of progress in energy policy. Offshore wind energy is of central importance for the achievement of climate protection targets and secures value creation in Germany as an industrial player,” the groups added. “There must be no further delay.”
By the end of 2018, German had installed 1305 turbines offshore with a total output of 6382MW feeding into the grid, the five groups said citing figures from Deutsche WindGuard.
Last year, 136 new turbines were erected off the coast of the country, amounting to 969MW.
A further 276MW was installed but not yet connected to the mainland grid.
The groups also called on the government to prioritise the expansion of transmission infrastructure.