As well as financially strong investors, there was an initial lack
of turbines, port facilities suitable for offshore, a suffirent number of spécial installation vessels and enough trained specialists
used to working at sea.
Not ail the delays of which there were plenty up to 2010/2011
were the fault of the wind power industry. No-one could hâve
foreseen the outbreak of the financial and économie crisis from
the autumn of 2008. Thereafter many banks were even more
hésitant about granting loans for wind farms on the high seas.
A further surprise as unpleasant as it was unexpected came from
Tennet: in November 2011, the transmission System operator responsible for ail North Sea wind farms wrote an urgent letter to
the fédéral government with an alarming message: the company
did not see itself in a position to finance sockets at sea for ali
the projects planned, it stated. Tennet's warning letter triggered
hectic activity in Berlin's political circles. Although a solution was
found, the incident had the effect of unsettling the investors; ali
of this made a significant dent in the image of offshore wind power.
In any case, several investors in German offshore wind projects
had already had to put up with bitter delays in grid connection
even before Tennet's threatening letter. In 2009, the Fédéral Network Agency set an interval of 30 months between the awarding
of a contract and the provision of power at sea - but with the ever
increasing number of projects, Tennet flagged that there would
be delays to the crucial grid connections.
But politics, too, created lasting delays. At the beginning of 2013,
thethen Ministerforthe Environment, Peter Altmaier, went public
with his idea of a so-called electricity price cap. In order to reduce
the cost of the future expansion of renewable energy, the CDU
politician proposed not only in some cases to si g n ifi ca ntly reduce
the feed-in tariffs laid down in the EEG, but also to retrospectively eut EEG rémunération. In doing so, Altmaier broke a legal
taboo. Investors from Germany were not expecting this backwards somersault. While Germany had until then been considered as a safe haven for foreign investment, Altmaier unsettled
many investors with his idea. The conséquence was that until the
parliamentary élections in September 2013, nobody took a single
investment decision for an offshore wind farm. A circumstance
which numerous suppliers experienced painfully at first hand.
i *
172
of turbines, port facilities suitable for offshore, a suffirent number of spécial installation vessels and enough trained specialists
used to working at sea.
Not ail the delays of which there were plenty up to 2010/2011
were the fault of the wind power industry. No-one could hâve
foreseen the outbreak of the financial and économie crisis from
the autumn of 2008. Thereafter many banks were even more
hésitant about granting loans for wind farms on the high seas.
A further surprise as unpleasant as it was unexpected came from
Tennet: in November 2011, the transmission System operator responsible for ail North Sea wind farms wrote an urgent letter to
the fédéral government with an alarming message: the company
did not see itself in a position to finance sockets at sea for ali
the projects planned, it stated. Tennet's warning letter triggered
hectic activity in Berlin's political circles. Although a solution was
found, the incident had the effect of unsettling the investors; ali
of this made a significant dent in the image of offshore wind power.
In any case, several investors in German offshore wind projects
had already had to put up with bitter delays in grid connection
even before Tennet's threatening letter. In 2009, the Fédéral Network Agency set an interval of 30 months between the awarding
of a contract and the provision of power at sea - but with the ever
increasing number of projects, Tennet flagged that there would
be delays to the crucial grid connections.
But politics, too, created lasting delays. At the beginning of 2013,
thethen Ministerforthe Environment, Peter Altmaier, went public
with his idea of a so-called electricity price cap. In order to reduce
the cost of the future expansion of renewable energy, the CDU
politician proposed not only in some cases to si g n ifi ca ntly reduce
the feed-in tariffs laid down in the EEG, but also to retrospectively eut EEG rémunération. In doing so, Altmaier broke a legal
taboo. Investors from Germany were not expecting this backwards somersault. While Germany had until then been considered as a safe haven for foreign investment, Altmaier unsettled
many investors with his idea. The conséquence was that until the
parliamentary élections in September 2013, nobody took a single
investment decision for an offshore wind farm. A circumstance
which numerous suppliers experienced painfully at first hand.
i *
172