Hearing of committee to limit feed-in tariffs for negative electricity prices

The Bundestag committee is planning a two-hour expert hearing on Wednesday from 11:15 to 13:15 on planned changes to the Energy Industry Act. Among other things, it will discuss the capping of feed-in tariffs at times of negative electricity prices.

The draft bill was submitted to the Bundestag jointly by the Greens and SPD after the end of the traffic light government on December 17. In the first consultation on December 20, 2024, it was then referred to the Committee on Climate Protection and Energy. It is now on the agenda there on Wednesday of this week.

Compensated capping of feed-in tariffs

The draft amendment entitled “Draft Act to amend the Energy Industry Act to avoid temporary surpluses in generation” contains, among other things, clauses to ensure that the remuneration for solar system operators is set to zero at times of negative electricity prices. This is intended to achieve better control of electricity generation and stabilization of the grid load, which serves to ensure system security for grid operation.

Section 51a from page 27 onwards is interesting. According to this, the feed-in is quantized in quarter-hour units. The electricity exchanges are to report the quarter-hour units to the transmission system operators, in which the remuneration was set to zero due to negative electricity prices. The number will be added to the remuneration period of the affected installations, which has generally been 20 years to date. However, paragraph (2) provides for a reduction that multiplies the number by a factor of 0.5 – i.e., halves it as things stand at present.

The committee would like to hear ten experts on this and three other legislative proposals. Initial comments have already been made public. The German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) “expressly welcomes” the “package of measures to avoid power peaks and ensure system stability” as well as the changes for a rapid rollout of smart metering systems. 50Hertz Transmission GmbH echoes this sentiment, but recommends that “individual aspects go beyond the measures proposed in the draft bill”: “For example, the measure to suspend remuneration for The measure to suspend remuneration in the event of negative prices (Section 51 (1) and (2) EEG-E) for new installations should be supplemented by the introduction of a penalty for further feed-in,” 50Hertz recommends, i.e., penalties for further feed-ins by installation operators should follow.

The German Solar Industry Association (BSW Solar), on the other hand, recommends “adopting the draft bill now so that the necessary measures for the further system integration of photovoltaics cover the strong expansion in the coming months, generation peaks are curbed and the efficiency of subsidies is increased”.

In addition to this bill, the agenda also includes an amendment to the bill by the Greens and SPD, an amendment to the Federal Requirements Plan Act (20/14242) and a subsidy for transmission grid costs in 2025 (20/14026). The meeting is open to the public and will be broadcast on the Bundestag website.

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(dmk)