From pv magazine Germany
Germany's federal cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law that would implement the EU's Renewable Energy Directive.
Drawn up jointly by the ministries of transport, environment and economic affairs, the draft law contains planning and approval provisions for onshore wind power and photovoltaics. Acceleration areas and shortened approval times are intended to drive renewables expansion forward more quickly. The regulations also apply to energy storage systems that are built at the same location, according to the economic affairs ministry.
The proposed law's central element is the designation of so-called acceleration areas for onshore wind turbines and for PV systems that include associated energy storage, which is regulated in the Building Code and Spatial Planning Act. Projects within these areas could then be approved in a simplified and accelerated procedure in accordance with the new provisions in the Wind Energy Area Requirements Act, according to the ministry. In addition, acceleration measures provided for by the directive for all projects, including those outside acceleration areas, would be implemented through changes to the Federal Immission Control Act.
The Renewable Energy Directive, revised last year, is based on the EU's goal of increasing the share of renewable energy sources in gross final energy consumption to at least 42.5% in the EU. To achieve this goal, the approval procedures must be significantly accelerated.
“The implementation of the acceleration areas is a real booster for more onshore wind energy. And it is also urgently needed when we look at the expansion figures for wind,” said Carolin Dähling, head of communications and policy at Green Planet Energy. “It is also positive that, compared to the previous draft, the federal government is making it easier for storage systems to be combined not only with solar but also with wind energy systems. This will further accelerate the expansion of storage systems, help with the market integration of renewables, reduce times of negative electricity prices and thus make the systems more economical.”
Simplified approval of electrolyzers
The cabinet also agreed on an amendment to facilitate and speed up the approval of electrolyzers for hydrogen production. The government is thus implementing the requirements of the amended European Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), which will come into force on August 4.
“With today's decision, we are making it easier to approve electrolyzers for hydrogen production and are thus adapting our rules for hydrogen acceleration at the earliest possible date, even before the European directive comes into force,” said Jan-Niclas Gesenhues, parliamentary state secretary in the environment ministry. “In this way, we are shortening the approval process for companies and significantly reducing the bureaucratic effort.”
In future, electrolyzers with a hydrogen production capacity of 50 tonnes per day or more will only have to undergo an approval process prescribed by European law. Until now, the approval under European law applied to all electrolyzers on an industrial scale.
For electrolyzers with a nominal electrical output of less than 5 MW, the approval requirement under emissions control law would no longer apply. Electrolyzers with a production capacity of less than 50 tonnes of hydrogen per day could thus be approved in a simplified procedure.
The Federal Council still has to approve the proposed law.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.