Steps have been taken to prioritise passage of a draft law designed to ensure that Germany's offshore wind industry overcomes recent, potentially crippling, delays linked to cable connections to shore.*
The law is set to introduce new risk liability rules that will compensate offshore wind developers if their projects are not connected to the onshore electricity network on schedule. Several offshore wind projects planned for the German North Sea have recently been publicly put on hold by developers - RWE, Dong and EnBW - in response to their concerns that once built the wind farms risk being stranded without grid connections.
Earlier this week, concerns were raised that passage of the draft law - Dritte Gesetz zur Neuregelung energiewirtschaftlicher Vorschriften - before year-end would not be achieved, making entry into force at the beginning of 2013, as planned, impossible.
Now, it has been announced that a 1.5 hour parliamentary debate will take place at the end of the week, on 30 November, and this will be followed immediately by second and third readings.
*The 30 November parliamentary debate was rescheduled and brought forward by a day.
