The energy park developer Alterric is very concerned about the further delay in the planned reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2027) and the new grid connection package. The federal government’s draft laws, which have so far only been known as leaks, would jeopardize the financial viability of new wind energy projects. This threatens to put a significant brake on the supply of the German industrial location with urgently needed, cheap energy. Instead of accelerating the transformation, the current challenges are to be solved unilaterally at the expense of the producers instead of optimizing the overall system.
Redispatch reservation jeopardizes project financing
A central point of criticism from Alterric is the planned “redispatch reservation” in the grid connection package. According to this, operators of new plants should be able to be curtailed for up to ten years without financial compensation in the event of grid bottlenecks. The company sees this as an existential risk for the planning and financing of new wind farms. The sluggish grid expansion must not be at the expense of the producers. Without effective expansion incentives for grid operators, there is a threat of a massive investment freeze.
Even though the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy recently signalled a willingness to talk about alternative instruments, the debate remains narrowed down to putting the brakes on renewable plants at overloaded grid points more strongly. Alterric thinks this is the wrong focus: it is not generation that needs to be slowed down, but grid expansion that needs to pick up the necessary pace. Binding deadlines and effective sanctions for grid operators have so far been completely absent from the drafts.
“The approaches to date do not solve the central problem: grid expansion is lagging far behind the expansion of renewables,” says Dr. Frank May, CEO of Alterric. “Instead of correcting this imbalance, the costs are one-sidedly burdened on the producers.”
“The consistent expansion of a secure and affordable energy supply in Germany has a direct impact on the willingness of industry and business to invest. Companies invest where energy is reliable, safe and cheap. That is why the expansion of renewables is not an industry issue, but central to the future of Germany as a business location.”
Lack of tender impulses slows down expansion also in the south
A central component of this investment-friendly legal framework is the provision of sufficient tender volumes. However, the 12,000 megawatts of additional tender quantities for onshore wind stipulated in the climate protection programme are missing from the EEG draft that has been leaked so far. However, it is precisely a clever design of the distribution of these additional quantities that is elementary in order to continue to enable wind energy expansion in southern Germany and thus ensure a system-friendly distribution of generation, as well as lower grid expansion and redispatch costs. Alterric also resolutely rejects a reduction in the so-called correction factor for locations with weaker winds, because this would further stifle regional expansion.
Progress on storage and funding framework – but improvements needed
The company observes with concern that spatial control signals, including construction cost subsidies, are being considered for renewables in parallel processes. This can lead to unnecessary and uncoordinated double burdens. Alterric, on the other hand, assesses the facilitation of the connection of battery storage systems at existing locations as positive. However, this openness to technology must now be consistently extended to the joint use of grid connections for wind and solar plants. Only through such a superstructure can the existing grid capacities be used optimally and cost-efficiently.
Designing investment frameworks in a market economy – introducing CfDs with a market value corridor
Alterric welcomes the fact that the Federal Ministry of Economics is taking up European requirements for the further development of renewable energy hedging with the introduction of bilateral, production-dependent contracts for difference (CfDs). In its present form, however, the model falls well short of its potential. Alterric is particularly critical of the lack of a market value corridor: the operation of renewables is being moved further away from the market, so there are fewer incentives to build and operate in a system-integrated manner – in short, this threatens to make the expansion less market-oriented and less efficient. For a system-serving and investment-friendly expansion, targeted tightening is therefore necessary. This applies in particular to the hedging of PPAs, as announced by the German government as early as autumn 2025.
It is now important that the German government quickly presents official draft laws and can start the parliamentary procedure, also because the European Commission still has to grant approval under state aid law before it comes into force on 1 January 2027. The uncertainty for companies and the German economy resulting from the delay is unacceptable.
