Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) wants to see the expansion of wind power and photovoltaics more closely aligned with the expansion of the local network. Resistance to this “network package” comes particularly from the renewable energy sector and the Greens.
The background: The power grids are often not sufficientto transport all wind and solar power during peak times. The network operators then have the green electricity systems temporarily switched off and compensate their operators for this. This means that the slow expansion of the electricity grid has not yet been an obstacle to the expansion of renewables. This is still necessary if Germany wants to achieve its goal of generating 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2030. The compensation However, the network operators and ultimately the electricity customers are becoming increasingly more expensive.
She therefore now wants to partially abolish the rich. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, distribution network areas in which more than 3 percent of the electricity that could be generated were lost in the previous year due to network bottlenecks should be designated as “capacity limited” in the future. In these regions there will no longer be any compensation for new systems for up to 10 years if the electricity cannot be transferred. This is to be implemented as part of the upcoming amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).
Leo Birnbaum, head of the energy company Eon, had already called for such a step in spring 2025. It was “time to rethink the promotion of renewable energies and to align the expansion with the available grid infrastructure,” he wrote at the time.
Now the demand has made it into a draft law. Large parts of the country are likely to be affected by such a rule: last year, between 3 and 4 percent of electricity from renewable energies nationwide were curtailed due to grid bottlenecks.
Greens and industry associations are protesting
As a further innovation, the ministry is also bringing payments from system operators into play for network expansion. So far, the EEG still contains the sentence: “The costs of optimizing, strengthening and expanding the network are borne by the network operator.” In the future, however, the network operators should be able to demand construction cost subsidies from the investors in the generation plants.
The protest was not long in coming. The Greens describe the bill as an “energy transition killer package,” a “strangling program” and a “frontal attack on the energy transition.” Nina Scheer, energy policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, also criticizes the fact that the expansion of renewables is “one-sidedly” synchronized with the grids. In this way, “the market incentives are reduced for precisely those technologies that are needed for the systemic switch to renewable energies”.
The industry associations are already alarmed: the “network package” endangers “billion-dollar investments in the necessary expansion of onshore wind energy,” according to the Federal Wind Energy Association. In order to overcome the challenges in the network, “the existing infrastructure must be used better and expanded more quickly”. Meanwhile, the Federal Solar Industry Association sees the “energy transition at a solar crossroads”.
There is also protest against the BMWE’s plans from the cooperative sector: “This is a toxic mix that is strangling investments and is precisely affecting the citizen-oriented energy transition,” explains the energy cooperative Green Planet Energy. In practice, “operators in almost all network regions in Germany would be forced to forego compensation in the event of curtailments”.
The German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association also calls for reliable framework conditions for citizen energy cooperatives, i.e. “clear regulations for refinancing and secure network access”. Otherwise, “people’s participation and thus the necessary investments and acceptance of the energy transition would be slowed down.”