Hogan Lovell OffshoreBook 2023 230809 OnlinePDF - Flipbook - Page 109
Offshore Wind Worldwide 2023
109
2. THE OFFSHORE WIND PROMOTION SYSTEM
2.1 Regulatory framework
(a) Federal level
On the federal government level, the
(leading) competent authority is the
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs
and Climate Action.10 The main federal
legal instruments setting the regulatory
environment for offshore wind energy
are the Offshore Wind Energy Act (Windenergie-auf-See-Gesetz), the Renewable
Energies Act (Erneuerbare Energien
Gesetz) and the Energy Industry Act
(Energiewirtschaftsgesetz). As far as for
offshore wind relevant, the application
their provision is often limited to the
German exclusive economic zone in the
North Sea and the Baltic Sea ("EEZ") or
German territorial waters.
The Offshore Wind Energy Act11 primarily
includes the legal regimes for:
(i)
the sectoral planning and
pre-investigation of the "sites"
for offshore wind energy
(see section 2.2),
(ii)
the tender process for OWTGs
commissioned as of 2021
(see section 2.2),
(iii)
the construction and operation
permission for OWTGs, grid connection systems (GCSs), and other
energy generating facilities
(see section 3), and
(iv)
the tender process for "other energy generation areas"
(see section 7).
The Renewable Energies Act12 primarily
regulates the overall development of
renewable energy of all sources, applicable feed-in tariffs, and market premiums
(see section 2.3), grid connection, transmission and distribution issues.
The Energy Industry Act13 primarily
regulates issues regarding the operation
and access to the electricity grids. With
respect to offshore wind energy, this act
includes rules on the duty of the transmission system operators to construct
and operate the grid connection systems for OWTGs and compensations in
case of a failure to do so (see section 5).
Authorities competent for the execution of the above mentioned acts are,
primarily, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie – "BSH")
which is an authority associated with the
Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport
and which is inter alia involved in the
special planning and site development
10 The ministry‘s information site on offshore wind energy is available at: https://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Technologien/
Windenergie-auf-See/windenergie-auf-see.html.
11 Available at: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/windseeg/.
12 Available at: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/eeg_2014/index.html.
13 Available at: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/enwg_2005/index.html.
