Developers have been rushing to get turbines operating ahead of next year's feed-in-tariff (FIT) reductions and the introduction of an auction mechanism to cap annual capacity.
"Whoever secures approval before the end of the year and erects their turbines in 2017 or 2018 will still get the legally fixed rates of remuneration for the power they produce," said the German wind and energy federations.
"[But] the tariff degression starting in March 2017, and particularly the intensified degression from October 2017 will render expansion clearly less attractive," they said.
Germany's wind industry expects 2017 to show a similar level of growth as this year, but "significantly less expansion" in 2018.
