Germans Call For 2GW Offshore Wind Tender by Year-End

German offshore wind industry associations have called on the government to launch a special tender before the end of the year and offer up to 2GW in capacity to be developed.

The industry representatives from BWE, BWO, Stiftung OFFSHORE-WINDENERGIE, VDMA Power Systems, and WAB said that ”the industry now needs reliable, long-term framework conditions. This involves raising the expansion targets and launching a special tender before the end of the year, including the converter capacities that are still available.”

This comes as Deutsche WindGuard published the expansion figures for offshore wind energy in Germany in the first half of 2019 which show that 42 turbines with a combined capacity of 252MW were added during the period. Further 679MW was under construction at the end of June.

In total, 1,351 offshore wind turbines with 6,658MW capacity were connected to the grid at the end of June.

According to the industry representatives, this means that the offshore wind is still on track, however, ”the positive development of the value chain over the past few years will be considerably disrupted by a thread break that has now occurred. The 7.7 GW cap by 2020 has almost been reached. For the years thereafter, the framework conditions are lacking to be able to implement projects.”

The expansion targets must be raised to at least 20GW of installed offshore capacity by 2030 and at least 30GW by 2035 in the German parts of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, the industry representatives said. The grid study published in June by WP&More Consulting and the law firm GGSC shows that the expansion of renewable energies in Germany does not have to be slowed down due to delayed grid expansion. In addition, the German government should give priority to the expansion of large transmission grids – as provided for in the Electricity Grids Action Plan – and at the same time promote Power-to-X solutions.

A reliable framework and ambitious expansion targets are necessary so that investments in German locations are worthwhile again and jobs are secured. A gap in the expansion, as it threatens from 2020, is not acceptable in terms of industrial policy.

“Germany should once again take a leading position. Therefore, the announced special invitation to tender needs to be implemented promptly,” said the industry representatives.

With a contribution of up to 2GW, the free converter capacities can be used to their economic potential. Concrete legislative steps must be taken immediately after the summer break, according to the representatives.