"CDU wants to stop wind power expansion"

The vice-chairman of the CDU's parliamentary group, Michael Fuchs, says wind power expansion in northern Germany "urgently" needed to be stopped due to mounting costs linked with Germany's lagging grid expansion, Andreas Mihm writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Installed wind power capacity in northern Germany is about twice as high as the region's power demand", forcing local producers to sell their electricity to customers in the south, Mihm explains. But due to insufficient transmission line capacities, only limited amounts of power can be transported, which is why Germany's Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) ordered a conventional power reserve to be held available in the south. Fuchs says the reserve coupled with grid expansion led to a "cost blind flight", prompting the conservative politician to call for postponing the next round of onshore wind power tenders, Mihm writes.

See the CLEW factsheet Germany's electricity grid stable amid energy transition for background.