German renewables operators urged to register facilities to avoid losing remuneration

The energy industry group BDEW has warned 300,000 renewable energy operators to enter their facilities in a new registry with the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) to avoid losing their fixed remuneration guaranteed by Germany's Renewable Energy Act (EEG).

Operators would have to register their installations by the end of January to retain full support under the EEG, the BDEW said.

So far, 1.1 million operators have already completed the registration, but hundreds of thousands of running renewable energy sources are still missing, primarily roof-mounted solar PV panels. "They face the risk losing support or having it curtailed by February," the BDEW said.

The registry provides for the first time an overview of all power generation plants in Germany. The aim is to bundle information on the increasingly decentralised plants in order to be able to transport and sell electricity and gas efficiently in the future.

Renewables operators face another issue in the coming years: Throughout the 2020s, many of Germany’s pioneer wind turbines, solar PV installations and biogas plants will stop receiving fixed feed-in tariffs that were first paid in the year 2000. Even though the government already made provisions to keep a large number of wind turbines running through a dual approach of so-called repowering of older turbines with newer models at the same location and through power purchase agreements (PPAs), the end of guaranteed remuneration still could mean that a lot of renewable capacity is shut down because operators cannot run them at a profit.

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