GERMANY PLANS MORE WIND

Germany might have the world’s most advanced national planning for renewable energy development so when it says it wants to shift incentives from solar to wind, it is worth knowing why.

Germany To Drop Solar Subsidies For Wind
July 6, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel
European Wind Energy 2006: Germany is building wind. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Gabriel called for a shift in government subsidies from solar projects to large-scale off-shore wind projects.

WHEN
Report presented July 6. Proposed rate changes and subsidy protections would begin in 2008.

WHERE
Report presented in Berlin. Germany’s solar projects are in concentrated in its old coal mining districts. The off-shore wind projects are along the Baltic and North Sea coasts.

WHY
- Progress report on Germany’s Renewable Energies Law (REL) of 2000. The goal was 12% renewable energy by 2010. They already have 13%.
- The larger goal is to get greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.
- REL, considered the “driving force” behind Germany’s world leading solar industry development, reduces wind energy subsidies 2%/year, allowing market forces to develop. Gabriel suggests cutting it to 1% and upping compensations, 0.7 cents/kilowatt-hour for onshore wind and significantly more (from 8.74 cents to 11-14 cents/kilowatt-hour) for offshore wind.
2006 installation: Germany takes the biggest piece of the pie.

QUOTES
Gabriel (in 2005): "In order to establish a sustainable energy supply and to effectively counteract climate change, we need an accelerated expansion of renewable energies. With the dual strategy of energy and raw material efficiency on the one hand and the expansion of renewables on the other hand we also boost economic development and provide jobs…Economic growth and climate protection cannot be based on nuclear power."