Europe Approves 20 German Offshore Windfarms

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - The European Commission (E.C.) has approved Germany's financial support for 20 new offshore windfarms.

All of the projects are due to be commissioned by 2019 and represent €29.3 billion ($31.5 billion) in total investment.

After investigation, the Commission concluded that the government's subsidies for the projects are in line with European Union (E.U.) state aid rules, concluding that the projects would boost Europe's energy and environmental objectives without "unduly distorting competition" in the Single Market. The green light opens the way for Germany to radically boost its fledgling offshore wind portfolio over the next four years. Developers of the projects will be guaranteed a premium payment from the government over the market price for electricity -- a technique used by many governments to encourage more investment in renewable energy.

Seventeen of the windfarms will be located in the German North Sea while three will be built in the Baltic Sea. They will have a combined generation capacity of 7-gigawatts (GW), producing 28 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity per year -- 13% of the Germany's 2020 renewable energy target.

The projects will be carried out under the German support scheme for renewable energy - Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz (EEG Act) - which the Commission approved in July 2014. The 20 projects were brought to the Commision by the government they exceeded the 250 MW threshold set out in Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy.

"The Commission found that the projects contribute to reaching Germany's 2020 targets for renewable energy without unduly distorting competition in the single market," the Commission stated. "In particular, the Commission verified that the state aid is limited to what is necessary to realising the investment. The rates of return that investors would achieve thanks to the premium were limited to what is necessary to implement each project and in line with rates previously approved by the Commission for similar projects."

In February the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) outlined how Germany was in line to install twice the amount of offshore wind this year than the U.K. -- the world's leading offshore wind nation for the past number of years. It pointed out that despite a record 2014, the U.K. had just three offshore projects due to finish in 2015, while Germany has eight. For additional information, see February 3, 2015, article - European Offshore Wind Dips in 2014.

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