威力彩玩法

The energy minister of the German state with the most wind turbines has warned of an impending 鈥渃atastrophe鈥� in the industry due to the end of support under the Renewable Energy Act (EEG). Olaf Lies, energy and environment minister in Lower Saxony, told Klaus Stratmann in that the federal government must act to cushion the effect of the expiration of the fixed feed-in tariffs to 鈥減revent the impending collapse of wind energy鈥�. Germany could face 鈥渁 gigantic dismantling of wind energy with all the consequences for CO2-free power generation鈥�, the Social Democrat said. Both Lies and the German Wind Energy Association () say that so-called repowering, or installing new, more efficient turbines in place of older machines, is an important solution. "We are calling for a national repowering strategy that secures and maintains the urgently needed existing sites and simplifies and accelerates project approvals," BWE President Hermann Albers told Stratmann.

Guaranteed remuneration for operators of renewable power installations has been a key component of Germany's energy transition. From 2000, Germany鈥檚 Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) guaranteed 20-years of payments to turbine operators. Therefore, starting in 2021 and throughout the 2020s, many of Germany鈥檚 pioneer wind turbines will stop receiving fixed feed-in tariffs, meaning many gigawatt in renewable capacity may be shut down if they can鈥檛 find a new business model to run on. With electricity prices at a low and old turbines becoming expensive to maintain, this puts more than 15,000 megawatts of wind power capacity at risk of shutdown by 2025, writes Stratmann. For comparison, only 1,078 megawatts of new capacity was installed last year, he writes. The federal economy ministry said the end of EEG support will initially affect "only a very small proportion of the total installed capacity鈥� and said refinancing for older plants was available.