IN Brief:
- Germany has retained its statutory offshore expansion goals while revising auction support, network utilisation, and standard project operating periods.
- Future auctions will use a two-stage model, while offshore grid connections may be overbuilt by up to 20%.
- The legislation now passes to the Bundesrat and Bundestag, where the final framework will determine future project delivery conditions.
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has moved its offshore wind reform into the parliamentary process after the federal cabinet approved legislation intended to improve project delivery, grid utilisation, and investment conditions.
The package approved on 2 September includes an amendment to the Wind Energy at Sea Act, or WindSeeG, alongside a separate bill covering federal support for transmission network costs. Germany is retaining its statutory offshore expansion targets, but the revised framework changes how future capacity can be auctioned, supported, connected, and operated.
At the centre of the WindSeeG amendment is a two-stage auction model. Market-based allocation remains the first route, but contracts for difference can be used where project risks are considered too high for unsupported bidding to produce deliverable projects. The mechanism is designed to reduce exposure to volatile wholesale revenues without turning every auction automatically into a fully supported procurement round.
The cabinet decision takes the proposal beyond the consultation draft published in August. That earlier draft retained Germany’s 70GW offshore wind target for 2045 while proposing longer operating periods and a route to two-sided CfDs. The bills approved by cabinet will now be sent to the Bundesrat and Bundestag.
The reform also allows offshore grid connections to be overbuilt by up to 20%. A wind farm does not produce at nameplate output continuously, so connecting generation capacity above the nominal rating of the export infrastructure can raise utilisation across lower-output periods. The trade-off comes when aggregate generation exceeds the connection limit, because some output may then have to be curtailed.
That changes the economics of both generation and network planning. Developers have to assess whether additional turbine capacity and the energy captured during lower-output periods justify the cost of equipment that cannot always export at full output. Network operators, meanwhile, need forecasting, operating rules, and control arrangements capable of managing a connection deliberately designed around a degree of oversubscription.
Germany is also extending the standard operating period for new offshore wind farms from 25 to 35 years. The additional decade can improve capital recovery, but it places more weight on long-term asset condition. Turbine structures, foundations, array and export cables, offshore substations, corrosion protection, and major rotating equipment all have to remain maintainable well beyond the original warranty period of many components.
The government says the revised framework is intended to support an average offshore build-out of around 3GW a year. That matters to the industrial base because turbine assembly, cable production, foundations, steel, ports, installation vessels, and service capacity require investment years before projects reach operation. A steadier pipeline is more useful to those suppliers than a sequence of large auction awards that later fail to convert into construction.
The legislation also implements resilience provisions linked to Article 26 of the EU Net-Zero Industry Act. That brings industrial and supply considerations into the procurement framework alongside price, project economics, and technical delivery, reflecting wider European efforts to strengthen the manufacturing base behind critical energy infrastructure.
A separate cabinet-approved bill provides annual federal support of €5.525 billion for transmission network costs through 2029. The measure changes how part of the cost burden is recovered during a period of heavy transmission investment, but it does not remove the underlying requirement for Germany to finance and build the network reinforcement needed for offshore expansion and wider electrification.
The two measures therefore address different parts of the same delivery problem. Offshore wind developers need a financeable route from auction to construction, while transmission operators need infrastructure that can connect and move the resulting power without leaving large amounts of generation waiting for network capacity.
The final legislation may still change during parliamentary scrutiny. Auction details, support conditions, and implementation rules will determine how the framework works in practice, particularly when developers decide whether a prospective project can support debt, equity, equipment orders, and long-term operating commitments.
Germany’s offshore targets have not been reduced by the cabinet decision. The policy adjustment is instead aimed at the gap between awarded capacity and operating capacity — a gap that becomes expensive when auctions create nominal projects but factories, ports, cables, substations, and turbines are not ordered on a timetable that leads to energisation.
The next test will come with future auction rounds. Their value will be measured less by the volume awarded on the day than by the projects that reach financial close, place equipment orders, begin construction, and ultimately export power through the offshore network.
