The draft EEG bill violates the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises

Published on: September 16, 2020 / Updated on: September 16, 2020 – Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

EEG draft bill violates the interests of small and medium-sized businesses – Image: @shutterstock|Juergen Priewe

Absurd discrimination against personal consumption

The German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2017) regulates the preferential feed-in of electricity from renewable sources into the grid and guarantees fixed feed-in tariffs for its producers. While the German government has deemed the EEG a success with regard to the expansion of renewable energies, its economic and environmental efficiency, as well as certain aspects such as exemptions for industry, are the subject of controversial debate.

According to the legal definition (§ 1 para. 1 EEG), it is intended to be in the interest of climate and environmental protection.

• to enable a sustainable development of energy supply,
• reduce the economic costs of energy supply by including long-term external effects (internalizing external costs),
  conserve fossil energy resources and
• Promote the further development of technologies for generating electricity from renewable sources.

The share of renewable energies in the electricity supply is to be increased to 40 to 45% by 2025 and to 55 to 60% by 2035 (§ 1 para. 2 EEG 2014).

The first draft bill to amend the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) has now been published. The German Association for Renewable Mobility (BRM) sees the focus as on optimizing the conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), small and medium-sized municipal utilities, and citizens to actively participate in the energy transition.

Only through a rapid, massive expansion of photovoltaics, wind energy, biogas (including biomethane), storage technologies such as hydrogen electrolysis with H2 use in mobility, as well as reconversion to electricity and electric mobility, can fossil fuels be replaced quickly enough to counteract the climate catastrophe.

Unfortunately, the draft only considers exempting hydrogen electrolysis from the EEG surcharge, according to the BRM:

• The most climate-friendly and cost-effective option is to consume self-generated energy. The draft legislation perpetuates the absurd discrimination against self-consumption.
• The expansion targets are far too low because the electricity consumption for 2030 is set much too low at 580 TWh.
• If the German government's hydrogen strategy aims to produce 100 TWh of hydrogen from renewable sources by 2030, then enormous production capacities will be required. The projected share of 14 TWh from domestic production is far too low. Importing hydrogen only makes ecological and financial sense if the exporting country supplies itself with (almost) 100% renewable energy. Otherwise, the transport and the necessary infrastructure cannot be justified.
• Even if only 14 TWh were produced domestically, the demand for electricity from renewable energy sources would increase drastically. This is due to the federal government's completely inadequate measures for energy conservation on the one hand, and the expansion of electromobility and data centers on the other.
• The extension of the tendering requirement to rooftop systems under 750 kWp will cause significant harm to citizens and medium-sized businesses.
• The explanatory memorandum explicitly refers to "professional planners or investors" and even acknowledges that "competitive tenders are not very suitable" for "private investors" and citizen energy cooperatives. The draft bill thus explicitly aims to exclude the majority of citizens and businesses from the construction and operation of medium-sized rooftop solar installations.

“The draft clearly bears the signature of the large EVUs (energy supply companies), which want to enforce an oligopoly and exclude citizen energy companies and medium-sized enterprises from competition,” said Peter Schrum, President of the BRM.

“We call on all industry associations to advocate for strengthening those who have made the energy transition possible, namely citizens with several million votes, the middle class and small and medium-sized municipal utilities,” Peter Schrum continued.

“We demand that photovoltaic systems up to 2 MWp be exempt from the tendering requirement.”

“We continue to demand the promotion of direct marketing of renewable energy electricity and not the unilateral transfer of citizen-generated energy marketing to energy utilities. Hydrogen is also a business for small and medium-sized enterprises. Citizens' associations must be allowed to supply their renewable energy electricity, bundled for decentralized hydrogen electrolysis via grid connection, without energy utilities taking a profit. Anything else would amount to disenfranchising citizens.”

The BRM states: “Self-consumption and direct marketing are the pillars of the energy transition. The solar, wind and biomass industries must fight for this more than ever.”