Berlin. Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) is specifying her plans to reorganize the expansion of wind energy in the German maritime region. “The decisive factor is not the amount of output tendered, but rather that wind farms are actually built,” says Ministry circles, according to Handelsblatt information.
The background is the difficult situation with offshore expansion in Germany. The expansion policy of the past few years has left significant undesirable developments, according to the ministry: “Overambitious tenders and rising costs are now endangering the realization of offshore wind farms.”
In 2023 and 2024 alone, offshore projects with an output of 16 gigawatts were awarded. This is more than one and a half times the currently installed capacity in Germany. Particularly for the large converter platforms, network connections were delayed by several years in some cases.
According to those close to Reich, wind farms were sometimes planned so densely that they would take wind away from each other. This mainly happens in the coastal zone, while there is still a lot of potential for expansion in areas further away from the coast.
This situation is causing offshore expansion to stall. Wind farms are not being built on many allocated areas because they have become uneconomical. According to ministry sources, investment costs have increased by around 50 percent in the past three years.
That's why Reiche is planning to reorganize the state framework for offshore wind energy. The federal government has already introduced a corresponding law and it is currently being discussed in the Bundestag. Area allocations should be optimized and the network infrastructure better expanded.
In future tenders, government funding should initially be completely dispensed with in order to improve the distribution of projects on the offshore areas. Contracts for differences are planned for projects that are not economical without funding. When electricity prices are low, investors would be helped, while when electricity prices are high, revenue flows back to the state.
But Reiche wants to intervene at one point. She now wants to enable returns and new awards for projects that have already been awarded. According to Handelsblatt information, the Minister of Economic Affairs only wants to do this within an extremely narrow framework.
According to ministry circles, this only concerns offshore areas that were awarded in 2023 and 2024 and on which no preliminary investigation had previously taken place. This is otherwise carried out to minimize risk for investors. These are areas with a total output of 9.5 gigawatts.
A one-off and time-limited return option should be created for them. After testing and optimization, the areas are to come back onto the market through special tenders. The previous landowners are excluded.
In general, Reiche does not want to allow returns or new assignments. This will lead to additional delays and endanger investments, according to ministry circles. Instead, the ministry is working on adjusting the payment modalities in order to strengthen liquidity in the early phase. Companies should have to pay less money at once in the early project phase. This leaves them with more liquidity to finance the planning and development of their wind farms as long as there is no income from operations.
Reiche only wants to allow this in exceptional cases, which several prime ministers had previously fundamentally demanded in an incendiary letter. The letter stated that what was necessary was a “unique, clearly conditioned and legally secure return option” with a new tender in a timely manner, without any further restrictions.
