Germany must streamline permitting procedures and remove administrative barriers to wind projects, the sector urged after new onshore wind installations last year plunged more than the industry had feared.

Net additions for wind on land in 2018 fell to 2.15GW in Europe’s largest onshore wind market, less than half of the 4.87GW registered in 2017, according to data by Deutsche WindGuard commissioned by Germany’s wind energy federation BWE and the VDMA Power Systems group that represents manufacturers.

The gross expansion last year was 2.4GW, but 249MW in mature onshore wind capacity was idled at the same time, thus lowering the net expansion. Germany’s cumulated onshore wind capacity reached 52.9GW at the end of 2018.

"Today it is more important than ever to quickly define the expansion of renewable energies towards the 2030 target and to adapt expansion paths. The stop‐and‐go [expansion] must be stopped,” said Matthias Zelinger, managing director of VDMA Power Systems.

"It is self‐explanatory that the 65% target of the Federal Government cannot be achieved by 2030 if the currently foreseeable annual expansion is continued.”

The wind industry in a mid-2018 estimate still had forecast last year’s onshore wind additions to reach 3.3GW.

The slump in the onshore wind expansion comes after a large share of projects in tenders in 2017 had been allocated without permits due to exemptions granted for citizens’ energy cooperatives, which also were allowed two more years to complete their projects – effectively pushing construction further into the future.

On top of that, the overall number of permits is falling massively, bringing additional distortions.

"To ensure sufficient competition, the backlog of permits in the federal states must be reduced. To achieve this, all parties involved must create the conditions for more permits," said BWE managing director Wolfram Axthelm.

The government late last year in the Omnibus Energy Act has said it will hold additional onshore wind tenders from this year through 2021, but their effect is expected to be felt only form 2021 onwards.

The recommendation over the weekend by Germany’s so-called ‘coal commission’ to phase out coal and lignite-fuelled generation in the country by 2038 should give a further impetus to speed up the renewables expansion in the mid- and long-term.

Nevertheless, the current onshore expansion slump endangers the leading position of the German wind industry in international competition, Zelinger warned.

Wind

German 2018 onshore wind additions collapse worse than feared