The German offshore wind industry has called for the urgent introduction of measures to speed up the country’s grid expansion to help tackle increasing network costs.
Sector association BWO believes an amendment to the Federal Requirements Plan Act, which is due to be discussed in the Bundestag this month, will accelerate the approval process for grid projects.
It said introduction of the act is urgent. “Unfortunately, these measures don’t work overnight,” said managing director Stefan Thimm.
The call came after it emerged that costs of eliminating network congestion increased by 5% in the last year.
“Despite all warnings, the grid expansion did not follow the conversion of our energy system quickly enough,” said Thimm.
“We are now seeing the effects of political errors, restrictive requirements in network planning and acceptance problems. This shows all the more clearly how important a forward-looking network expansion planning is.”