Online- discussion

“We should all be concerned with expanding offshore wind energy as cost-effectively as possible and thus ultimately relieving the burden on electricity customers,” says CEO, Catrin Jung, as part of yesterday's online event organized by the Federal Association of Offshore Wind Farm Operators e.V. (BWO).

An important topic of the debate was the availability of power lines to transport electricity from the sea to the centers of consumption. "The goal is very clear that the transmission line is also available at the moment when a new offshore wind farm goes into operation," assures MdB Mark Helfrich from the CDU / CSU parliamentary group and refers to the meeting that took place in May Federal-State Agreement. The planned grid connection fee should not change anything.
Especially against the background of the National Hydrogen Strategy, the Federal Government has a great interest in leveraging existing offshore potential as soon as possible. The aim is to exempt these projects from the EEG surcharge. “Nevertheless, we don't want to turn the precious electricity from renewable energies into hydrogen if we can use it that way,” says Helfrich. "Where we have electrical answers to the defossilization question, we will also give electrical answers."

The discussion was also dominated by the expert hearing on the faster expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany, which took place in the Bundestag that same morning. BWO managing director Stefan Thimm took part as an expert and cited the advantages of the difference contract model preferred by the industry. “We are not talking about contracts for differences on an hourly basis, but on a monthly or annual basis. Our proposal includes a direct marketing obligation. This ensures that incentives for market and system integration are retained. In addition, contracts for difference increase the probability and cost efficiency of offshore projects. This ensures that the climate protection targets are achieved and at the same time relieves the burden on consumers and industry, ”said Thimm.

The demand for contracts for difference is now coming from all parts of the economy. In addition to the wind farm operators, manufacturers and the supply chain as well as large parts of the financial sector and industry for offshore wind farms also support the difference contract model. For this purpose, the BWO had the Twitter campaign in advance of the expert hearing #procfd started, at which Dr. Ingrid Nestle and Julia Verlinden (Bündnis 90 / DIE GRÜNEN), Bernd Westphal (SPD), Matthias Zelinger (VDMA) and Pierre Bauer (Siemens Gamesa), who were also represented at the hearing.

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