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> The subsidies are (overly) high so that lots of renewable energy production/infrastructure is built In the first half of last year a total of 35 new wind tur

> The subsidies are (overly) high so that lots of renewable energy production/infrastructure is built In the first half of last year a total of 35 new wind turbines were added across Germany[0], the lowest rate for 19 years. If German government policies are supposed to encourage the creation of new renewable energy production then they don't appear to be working particularly well. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/windenergie-die-grosse-windkraftkrise-a-1279820.html https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/windenergie-die-g...

Faark 7y ago
Keep in mind there is a difference between subsidies we have to pay now for existing installations but were promised years or decades ago when those were built (this seems to be what the article is mostly about) and those guaranteed payments to turbine owners and rules around adding capacity now (and consumers will have to pay for in the decades to come). Yes, the political "enthusiasm" for renewable energy has faded quite a bit...
diffeomorphism 7y ago
As the article stresses since 2017 and for two reasons (different from what is discussed in this thread): - Switching to an auction model in 2017 to drive prices down, which was implemented very poorly. - Strongly incentivizing small "citizen" project to increase acceptance in the population. Which messed up larger scale deployments and lead to awful bureaucracy.
- logifail 7y ago
  > Strongly incentivizing small "citizen" project [...] Doesn't Germany have restrictive distance regulations between wind turbines and residential areas?
  - moepstar 7y ago
    Yep, that exactly is the problem. Due to distance regulations between residential areas, existing turbines etc etc (and basically each viable spot already taken / in use, besides offshore) the numbers built are shrinking - unless some kind of change regarding the laws are done... Source: gf is a landscape architect
lispm 7y ago
> policies are supposed to encourage the creation of new renewable energy production The government is slowing down adding wind turbines for basically two reasons: * market price * infrastructure catching up. We need more power lines to the south to distribute the electricity and building them takes a few years. It makes not too much sense to build wind electricity capacity in the North and not being able to transport it.

Faark 7y ago

Keep in mind there is a difference between subsidies we have to pay now for existing installations but were promised years or decades ago when those were built (this seems to be what the article is mostly about) and those guaranteed payments to turbine owners and rules around adding capacity now (and consumers will have to pay for in the decades to come). Yes, the political "enthusiasm" for renewable energy has faded quite a bit...

diffeomorphism 7y ago

As the article stresses since 2017 and for two reasons (different from what is discussed in this thread): - Switching to an auction model in 2017 to drive prices down, which was implemented very poorly. - Strongly incentivizing small "citizen" project to increase acceptance in the population. Which messed up larger scale deployments and lead to awful bureaucracy.

logifail 7y ago
> Strongly incentivizing small "citizen" project [...] Doesn't Germany have restrictive distance regulations between wind turbines and residential areas?
- moepstar 7y ago
  Yep, that exactly is the problem. Due to distance regulations between residential areas, existing turbines etc etc (and basically each viable spot already taken / in use, besides offshore) the numbers built are shrinking - unless some kind of change regarding the laws are done... Source: gf is a landscape architect

lispm 7y ago

> policies are supposed to encourage the creation of new renewable energy production The government is slowing down adding wind turbines for basically two reasons: * market price * infrastructure catching up. We need more power lines to the south to distribute the electricity and building them takes a few years. It makes not too much sense to build wind electricity capacity in the North and not being able to transport it.