Lower Saxony Calls For More Offshore Wind

Lower Saxony’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Olaf Lies, has called for an increase in Germany’s offshore wind targets following historically low bids in the first auction round in Germany.

As reported last week, Bundesnetzagentur selected three offshore wind projects by DONG Energy and one project by EnBW in the first auction for grid connections and funding for existing offshore wind farm projects, with DONG placing two zero bids and EnBW also placing a zero bid for its 900MW project.

The overall capacity of the four projects is 1,490MW, 60MW below the offered capacity, and the average award price was 0.44 Euro cents per kWh.

Lies said that the auction results ”clearly show the effective contribution of offshore wind energy to power generation in Germany.”

The results have also quashed the prevailing criticism of offshore wind being too expensive of an option, and have proven that this type of generation must take an even more prominent role in the country’s future energy mix.

Lies also warned that the further expansion of offshore wind and other forms of renewables must be accompanied by sectoral coupling through which the renewably sourced energy could be used for transportation, heating and industrial applications.

The second auction for existing offshore wind farm projects will take place on 1 April 2018. The volume for auction will again be 1,550MW, plus the 60MW not awarded in the first auction.

This includes a minimum of 500MW to be awarded as required by the Offshore Wind Energy Act for offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea.

Back in 2016, Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) set the target of 15GW of new offshore wind capacity to be added by 2030.