Expansion targets for PV and wind power tightened again in the BMWK’s “Osterpaket”

The government’s coalition agreement already contains ambitious plans for expanding renewable energies. The Osterpaket has tightened the expansion targets for PV and wind onshore capacity. By 2030, an additional 15 GW each of PV capacity (a total of 215 GW by 2030) and wind onshore capacity (a total of 115 GW by 2030) has to be installed 1. To achieve this goal, a yearly average of 17.4 GW of PV (rooftop, ground-mounted, and dedicated solar) and 6.5 GW of onshore wind will have to be added annually.

Looking back at the historical expansion, it appears evident that a huge challenge lies ahead. The necessary build-out rates will need to ramp up sharply in the next few years to achieve the target level of 22 GW of PV and 10 GW of onshore wind annually. In 2030, the share of renewable energies in gross electricity consumption should thus rise to 80 percent (2021: 41%). To achieve the final target, however, the expansion level of renewables must remain high after 2030 so that our electricity generation becomes virtually greenhouse gas neutral in 2035.