The European Commission approves new German renewable energy measures

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, three additional measures to support electricity production from renewable energy sources in Germany, which supplement the German Renewable Energy Act and will further contribute to achieving Germany's environmental targets. The three measures are:

• A change from a fixed to a sliding market premium in the payment structure for innovation tenders. This change aims to ensure that electricity producers are not overcompensated in times of high electricity prices.
• The introduction of financial incentives for consumers to invest in small rooftop solar photovoltaic installations, with a view to feeding more electricity into the grid instead of only using it for self-consumption.
• One additional round of ground-based and rooftop solar photovoltaic tenders in 2022. As the two rounds of tenders for ground-based and rooftop solar photovoltaic already organised in 2022 were undersubscribed, Germany will introduce a revised mechanism. The new measure improves the competitiveness of the tenders by adjusting the volume of electricity tendered for the additional round.

Earlier in September 2022, the European commission approved the raise of the share of renewables in the EU’s final energy consumption to 45% by 2030 (the current EU target is at least 32 %), under the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). In August 2022, The European Commission also approved, under EU State aid rules, a €2.98 bn German scheme to promote green district heating based on renewable energy and waste heat, which will run until 30 August 2028.