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BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s network agency on Friday announced plans to spread the cost of compensating grid operators for investments to integrate renewable power sources more evenly between consumers across the country.
Germany faces an estimated 450 billion euros ($498.4 billion) in grid expansion costs by 2045 in its push to cover 80% of its electricity consumption with renewables by 2030 and achieve climate neutrality by 2045. Those will be passed on to consumers through their energy bills.
A dispute has intensified between northern and southern states, with northern residents complaining about higher electricity prices despite the region’s cheaper wind power production.
The higher costs in the north are largely due to the expense of connecting wind turbines to the grid, which are distributed among fewer residents due to the region’s lower population density.
The issue is affecting acceptance for renewables expansion in eastern Germany, where prices are already 22% higher than the west, adjusted for purchasing power.
The new regulations establish a framework to identify network operators who face particularly high costs due to the integration of renewable energy. These operators will receive financial compensation, and the costs will be more evenly distributed among all electricity consumers across the country.
“The energy transition is a joint task, and investments in the grids benefit everyone,” said Klaus Mueller, president of the Federal Network Agency, in a statement.
In the coming months, the agency will refine and publish the specifics of the new model and will use a stepped approach, starting by determining whether a network operator is disproportionately affected by the costs of renewable energy expansion.
Estimates for the extra costs and the specific relief for individual network operators will be available from mid-October.
The approach will involve setting a key metric that relates the connected renewable generation capacity to the consumption load in the network area.
Germany is also looking into setting up a special government account to spread the costs of expanding its electricity network more evenly across generations.
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(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Editing by Miranda Murray and Jan Harvey)