The Renewable Energy Sources Act

The Act for the Development of Renewable Energy, in short the Renewable Energy Act (EEG), has regulated the priority feed-in of electricity from renewable sources into the German power grid since  April 2000. Over the past years, the EEG has been revised multiple times with its current version being in effect since January 2017. The EEG attaches particular importance to the planned development of renewable energy which are synchronised with the grid expansion and its improved market integration. With the EEG, the legislator seeks to enable the sustainable evolution of the energy supply and lower its economic cost. The use of fossil energy resources should also be cut back and technologies for the generation of electricity from RES’s should be promoted. The objective of the act is to make it possible for Germany to cover at least 80 percent of its electricity demand from renewable sources.

Legal text in its latest version

By means of the EEG levy, a large part of the subsidy payments for renewable energy is refinanced. The EEG levy is paid by electricity suppliers, companies with high energy costs but also self-sufficient producers and final consumers. To this end, the respective responsible transmission system operator (TSO) communicates monthly volume forecasts on the basis of which the TSO bills the EEG levy.

More information and data on the EEG levy can be found under Disclosure of EEG data.

If you are obliged to pay the EEG levy, you can register under the following link. All important information about the registration process is provided on our EEG registration site and during the registration process.

EEG levy Registration for self-sufficient producers and utility companies

Pursuant to §14 EEG, grid operators may, without prejudice to their obligation to increase network capacity, exceptionally regulate plants and cogeneration plants directly or indirectly connected to their network which are equipped with a facility for remote-controlled reduction of the feed-in power in the event of network congestion, provided that

• a bottleneck would otherwise be created in the relevant grid area including the upstream grid,
• the priority for electricity from renewable energy, mine gas and combined heat and power generation is ensured, if no other electricity producers have to remain connected to the grid to guarantee the security and reliability of the electricity supply system, and
• they have retrieved the available data for actual feed-in in the relevant grid region.

§ 15 para. 1 EEG obliges the connecting grid operators to compensate the installation operators affected by § 14 Abs. 1 EEG.
The grid operator causing the bottleneck is obliged to compensate the connecting grid operator for the costs.
 
The determination of the amount of the compensation payments is based on the stipulations of § 15 para. 1 EEG in conjunction with the current guideline of the Federal Network Agency on EEG feed-in Management.

50Hertz Guideline

Payment of compensation as of 01/01/2015 pursuant to § 15 EEG DOWNLOAD PDF (141 KB - GERMAN) 

Payment of compensation until 31/12/2014 pursuant to § 12 EEG DOWNLOAD PDF (129 KB - GERMAN)