Wind Watch
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WindEurope 2017: German manufacturers prepare for tough three years
By Richard Heap
German turbine makers face three tough years as the competitive tenders launched in onshore wind this year continue to bite, a leading figure in German wind has said.
Hans-Dieter Kettwig, managing director of Enercon, told the opening session of the WindEurope annual conference in Amsterdam today that the German government’s target of an average of 2.8GW installations a year until 2020 had raised uncertainty among manufacturers like Enercon. The average for the last three years is 4GW.
Kettwig highlighted some of the problems with the rules of this year’s auction. First, they gave priority to community groups by allowing them to bid for support without having all of the permits in place. Other developers had to bring permitted projects.
And second, community-led groups have around four-and-a-half years to complete their schemes, around two more than other developers. Kettwig said this results in a system where manufacturers like Enercon are unsure which projects will actually get to the construction stage, and when. This affects manufacturers’ production plans.
These rules also helped community-led groups to dominate the auctions this year...