German state ministers back industry call to delay 2026 offshore wind auctions
Ministers from Germany’s coastal states support an industry call to postpone the country’s 2026 offshore wind power auctions to give companies more time to prepare their bids. Christian Meyer and Tobias Goldschmidt, energy ministers of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, backed the idea to postpone the auctions from February to the final quarter of next year at an online debate hosted by offshore industry association BWO.
The two state ministers from the Green Party said the federal government must present new rules on the auction design soon after a tender earlier this year ended without receiving bids. Without postponing the 2026 auctions, the next round could also end without attracting any bids, warned minister Meyer. “This would be a fatal signal for the industry.”
At the same time, expansion targets for offshore wind “must remain in place and not be slowed down,” as recently suggested by federal economy minister Katherina Reiche. Reiche had commissioned a monitoring of the energy transition’s progress, which found great uncertainty regarding the rise of future electricity demand. If it were to increase slower than initially expected, it could put existing renewable power expansion targets into question, she argued.
The country plans to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind turbine capacity by 2030, 40 GW by 2035 and 70 GW by 2045. Reducing these targets would pose risks for thousands of jobs in Lower Saxony and elsewhere, Meyer said. More offshore wind power would be needed to cover rising demand for electricity, for example for heat pumps, electric vehicles or for electrolysers producing hydrogen, the minister said. “The offshore industry must not move abroad,” the Green Party politician said.
Operators of offshore wind farms must pay for using areas assigned for energy production in Germany’s parts of the North and Baltic Seas. However, the most recent 2025 auction received no bids and not a single offshore turbine was connected to the grid in the first half of the year. Among other things, the industry has said that a reformed auction should include contracts for difference (CfDs) and power purchase agreements (PPAs) to ensure reliable investment conditions.
Offshore wind industry urges postponement of Germany’s 2026 auctions to optimise bids
No bids in German offshore wind auction for first time – industry association
taz
It remains unclear when Germany can finally start building new gas power plants to back up renewable electricity generation because the EU’s necessary approval of planned state aid remains outstanding, newspaper taz reported. The economy ministry told the paper that discussions with the European Commission on the details of the planned tenders for the construction of the plants are nearing completion, but it has used this phrase for months, the article says.
Both the economy ministry and the European Commission refused to specify when they expect the talks to conclude. According to utility association BDEW, the new plants won’t be ready before the end of 2031 at the earliest, even if the government manages to launch a tender in mid-2026, which remains uncertain, wrote taz.
“The fact that the tender criteria for the power plant strategy are not yet available means that the time pressure is increasing for us,” said Kerstin Andreae, who heads the lobby group.
The increasing delay puts the coal exit in the west of the country at risk, which is currently planned for 2030, but depends on the availability of backup generation capacity. Former Green economy state secretary Michael Kellner warned that a continued operation of coal power plants or keeping them in reserve “not only damages the climate, but is also very expensive.”
Germany plans to exit coal-fired power plants nationwide in 2038 at the latest according to its coal exit law, but the western coal mining and heavy industry state North Rhine-Westphalia aims to complete the phase-out by 2030.
As the country phases out coal, it must build up alternative capacity it can switch on at times when intermittent wind and solar energy are insufficient to meet demand – so-called “controllable capacity”. It has decided that gas-fired units will play a major role during a transitional period, which would later be converted to or replaced by facilities that run on green hydrogen. Flexibility options such as large-scale batteries or managing demand will also play a role.
The business case for the new gas plants, which will only run occasionally, can only be guaranteed with additional state support, which is why the government is negotiating a state aid scheme with the European Commission. A long-delayed government report assessing the coal exit with regard to supply security and climate targets is due by August 2026.