Changing Solar and Wind Feed-In Tariffs To Reflect Regional Differences

Craig Morris at Renewables International discusses some interesting numbers on the regional differences in the cost of wind and solar energy in Germany.

The big picture is that wind is cheaper in the north, and solar is cheaper in the south.

For solar, that makes sense. Solar resources are better in the south.

For wind, it makes sense in the big picture. There are more good wind sites in the north, but that doesn’t mean there are no windy places in southern Germany.

Morris also goes ahead and compares these different costs per kWh to the feed-in tariffs for wind and solar. And he finds that the feed-in tariffs are insufficient for some sites, but way too high for others.

To remedy this problem, one might want to change the feed-in tariff so as to reflect these differences.

That would seem to be a good idea. So good actually, that this is already the way things are done right now for wind power.

Article 49 Paragraph 2 of the Law on Deployment of Renewable Energy has a very fine-tuned granular approach, under which the amount of feed-in tariff payments already depend on whether the site in question is above or below average.

With the large differences for solar reported by Morris it would probably make sense to have a similar approach for solar as well. Costs are about 2 cents (Euro) lower per kWh in the most southern part of Germany compared to the most northern parts. It doesn’t make much sense to have the same feed-in tariff for these very different conditions.

That in turn means that if, like the EU Commission wants, Germany moves to a system based on auctions, that most of solar under such a system would be built in the south. Projects in northern parts of the country would be unable to compete. That in turn would mean that whatever costs are saved by concentrating solar where the sun shines more would probably be offset by the need to have more power lines coming from such concentration.