Peer2Politics

Currently, 99% of the country’s electricity is supplied by just six companies. The Community Energy Coalition, which includes some of the best known and trusted national organisations, including The Co-operative Group, The National Trust, The National Federation of Women’s Institutes and The Church of England, wants to start a revolution with communities at its heart which will drive a clean, affordable and secure energy system. Our headline vision for community energy in 2020 is "communities across the UK owning, generating and saving energy together for the benefit of all".

Yesterday, the German cabinet approved the Renewable Energy Act Reform. The reform, referred to by some as the Feed-in Tariff 2.0 (FiT 2.0), was necessary: In the past few years, Feed-in Tariffs successfully boosted renewable energy deployment in the country. This sparked public and policy discussions around the grid development, market integration and financial instruments that would finally enable Germany to reach its policy target of 80% renewable electricity by 2050.

Unfortunately, the bill passed yesterday fails to address any of these questions. Instead, it strengthens the corporations and energy utilities that have failed to integrate renewables into their business model in the past decade. The following analysis shows why the reform cannot be considered FiT 2.0.