04 June 2010
The amendment of the renewable energy law (EEG) has been stopped by the German Bundesrat for the time being.
While the amendment already passed the parliament in May, in today’s session of the Bundesrat, a majority of the German Länder has agreed to send the changes of the solar feed-in tariff (FiT) to the federal arbitration panel. The chamber expressed concerns that the law in its current version would threaten the production and research site for photovoltaics in Germany and the national goals of climate protection and development of renewable energies.
For several Länder with a large concentration of photovoltaic companies, the level of cuts planned by federal environment secretary Norbert Röttgen is too high.
The plans of the parliament were to reduce FiT for solar plants on housetops by 16% as of 1 July. FiT for open space installations was to go down by 15%. For FiT for former industrial or military used land, the Bundestag had agreed on a decline by 11%, while FiT for new solar plants on agricultural land should be reduced to zero in the new law.
The Bundesrat now demands to reduce all cuts to 10% at most as of 1 July. While the amendment cannot be stopped completely by the Bundesrat, it is likely that the German government has to compromise now on the level of cuts in order to get the amendment through.
Reported by Andreas Breyer for Solar Novus Today.
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