Germany's Bundestag (lower house of parliament) has adopted a new law on renewables in the second and third readings, which will need to be debated on 11 July in the upper house (Bundesrat) and is expected to become law on 1 August 2014.
Renewable subsidies would be cut on 1 August, with power generators having to sell competitively on power markets rather than benefiting from a priority treatment with guaranteed prices. The new law introduces a cap on onshore wind capacity development of 2.5 GW per year, not including capacity additions from repowering. New solar PV power plants will be limited to 2.5 GW per year too, while new biomass-fired capacities will be capped at 100 MW per year. Offshore wind capacity will be limited to 6.5 GW by late 2020 (with some flexibility to eventually reach up to 7.2 GW). Renewable producers consuming their own power generation will have to pay 30% of the EEG fee as of January 2015; this share will be raised to 35% in 2016 and 40% in 2017.
In parallel, another law was adopted to allow each federal state (Land) to determine independently the distance of wind turbines to the nearest houses; Bavaria is considering a minimum distance of ten times the turbine height, which would rule out new wind development in the state.
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