Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe, not least due to the costs arising from the launch of renewable energy sources – but many customers continue to support the country's energy transition regardless. While wholesale electricity prices on average have been in decline in recent years, surcharges, taxes, and grid fees raise the bill for Germany's private households and small businesses. However, market observers say that power costs are often not even high enough for customers to look for cheaper alternatives. 

Impact on Economy Energy Policy Germany

Wind farms were paid up to £3 million per day to switch off their turbines and not produce electricity last week, The Telegraph can disclose. Energy firms were handed more than £12 million in compensation following a fault with a major power line carrying electricity to England from turbines in Scotland.

Taxes & Subsidies UK

A fire in a wind turbine in Germany’s Lower Saxony on January 18 prompted warnings from local authorities to keep windows and doors closed in nearby areas while authorities tackled the blaze.

Safety Structural Failure Germany

So-called 'constraint payments', a sort of compensation, have been paid to energy firms in charge of wind farms, when demand for electricity falls or winds are too strong for turbines to operate. These costs are added to consumers' electricity bills. ...According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, 2018 was a record year for constraint payments, reaching a staggering £124,649,106 - surpassing the total in 2017 of £108,247,860.

Taxes & Subsidies UK

Allocations to climate policy have more than doubled in recent years, while emissions have basically ceased to decrease. In the government's budget for 2020, 12.6 billion is allocated for climate policy, compared with 5.2 billion in 2014. But despite this, emissions no longer decrease. Last year, emissions increased even marginally.

Taxes & Subsidies Europe

Skeptics fear that the country is on a risky path. Sufficient renewable energy sources might not be available in time to compensate for the loss of fossil and nuclear power. Though renewables account for around 40 percent of Germany’s electricity supply, there are limits to further expansion ...In some rural parts of Germany, people are fed up with ever growing “wind parks”; more citizens are protesting new — and often taller — wind turbines in their neighborhoods. And there is growing resistance to the new paths needed to transport electricity from coasts to industrial centers. 

Energy Policy Germany

The 70-turbine wind farm, owned by Gort Windfarms, a company owned by ESB, was built in the Slieve Aughty Mountains between Gort and Loughrea, Co Galway in 2003 without proper environmental impact assessment. A landslide occurred during construction which caused major damage and is thought to have contributed to severe flooding the following year.

Impact on Landscape Erosion Ireland

“Overall, the renewables expansion is not sufficiently rapid to meet Germany’s generation targets for 2030,” Berlin-based Agora said in an annual analysis. The slower installation partly reflects delays to the planning and permissioning of onshore turbines applications because of objections to their construction. Disagreements over financing and general inertia by authorities have also slowed down related grid expansion to transport wind power north to south.

Energy Policy Germany

In October, Orsted’s share price fell by more than 7pc when it warned that its wind farms were producing less power than expected. The company blamed this dip in production on the fact that wind turbines block each others wind, thereby decreasing its efficiency. Orsted suggested that phenomenon had been traditionally underestimated across the wind energy industry, which has been under pressure in recent times as bountiful government subsidies are swapped for competitive auction systems.

General Europe UK

In October, Orsted’s share price fell by more than 7pc when it warned that its wind farms were producing less power than expected. The company blamed this dip in production on the fact that wind turbines block each others wind, thereby decreasing its efficiency. Orsted suggested that phenomenon had been traditionally underestimated across the wind energy industry, which has been under pressure in recent times as bountiful government subsidies are swapped for competitive auction systems.

General UK Europe

“Evidence to date has clearly shown that the measures proposed will simply not protect families from the negative health impacts of industrial-scale wind turbines. They will condemn families to unnecessary lifelong misery, resulting in a massive waste of people’s time, energy, community money and a clogging of the courts. Communities will not stop fighting this injustice; these guidelines are unacceptable."

Impact on People Ireland

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has proposed a new answer to people complaining about wind farms in Germany: offering money to those willing to live near them. "Those people who accept windmills in their neighborhood, and so make the expansion of renewable energy possible, should be rewarded," SPD environment spokesman Matthias Miersch told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper.

Impact on People Energy Policy Germany

Alex Salmond hailed it as a green revolution that would create clean energy and more jobs. But wind farms are now raking in more public cash than ever before – for not generating electricity at all.

General UK

Kildare County Council has refused planning permission to Statkraft Ireland Ltd to build Drehid Wind Farm. The decision was announced on December 19 2019.

General Ireland

The acquisition of sole control over certain assets belonging to Senvion of Germany by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy of Spain complies with EU Merger Regulation, the European Commission has said.

General Europe Germany

The acquisition of sole control over certain assets belonging to Senvion of Germany by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy of Spain complies with EU Merger Regulation, the European Commission has said.

General Germany Europe

Noise from wind energy developments will now be subject to a limit of five decibels above existing background noise up to a maximum permitted noise limit of 43 decibels, day or night. This is a tightening of the 2006 noise standards in line with the most up-to-date, best international standards.

General Ireland

The Irish Wind Energy Association has criticised proposed new rules for onshore wind farm development, claiming it will be "more difficult and more expensive" to construct projects under the plans. The rules would see new standards for noise, mandatory community consultations, a minimum setback distance of 500 metres from any residential property in the vicinity of a new development, and other measures.

General Ireland

The customers who were able to pop on a middle-of-the-night laundry load could have earned a renewables windfall of between 1p and 5p for every kWh of electricity they used, rather than spending double this rate to run appliances for only a few hours later.

Energy Policy UK

A 32-meter high toppled over Sunday night in Jorwert, Friesland, while a weather warning for strong winds was in effect. Though it was initially reported to the fire department as a possible case of storm damage, authorities told broadcaster NOS the cause is still under investigation.

Safety Structural Failure Europe