Germany’s Bundesrat has adopted a resolution on offshore wind expansion that the German Offshore Wind Energy Association (BWO) says takes up several of its own reform proposals, from a contracts-for-difference auction design to cross-border cooperation models. The association is urging the federal government to translate the recommendations quickly into the planned amendment of the Offshore Wind Energy Act.
The Bundesrat is calling on the government to present a draft amendment before the 2026 summer recess so a new auction design can take effect in time for tenders from 2027. The BWO argues companies need enough lead time to adjust investment and project planning to the new framework.
BWO managing director Stefan Thimm pointed to the failed 2025 offshore auction, the suspension of the 2026 auctions and continuing uncertainty over the delivery of individual awarded projects as evidence the current design must change. He said Germany needs an indexed, two-sided CfD-only model to improve financing conditions, raise the probability that projects are realised and give investors, supply chains and industry planning certainty.
The association also backs the Bundesrat’s call to address sites already awarded between 2023 and 2025, proposing a legally regulated mechanism for the voluntary return and rapid re-tendering of areas where individual projects no longer appear viable. The aim is to avoid long-term blockages of seabed areas and grid-connection capacity.
The BWO welcomed support for cross-border cooperation and the reaffirmation of the legal target of at least 70 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2045. It cited a Fraunhofer study, commissioned with the BDEW, showing that directly connecting offshore wind farms in neighbouring countries’ exclusive economic zones to the German grid could raise electricity yields by up to 13 per cent at up to 11 per cent lower costs. The resolution was introduced by North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony and adopted on 12 June 2026.
