Compensation Mechanism Ordinance

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Basic data
Title: Ordinance on the EEG compensation mechanism
Short title: Compensation Mechanism Ordinance
Previous title: Ordinance on the further development of the nationwide compensation mechanism
Abbreviation: AusglMechV
Type: Federal Ordinance
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Issued on the basis of: Section 91 , Section 96 (1) and (3) EEG 2014
Legal matter: Commercial administrative law , energy law
References : 754-27-4
Original version from: July 17, 2009
( BGBl. I p. 2101 )
Entry into force on: July 17, 2009 and January 1, 2010
Last revision from: Art. 1 of February 17, 2015
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 146 )
Entry into force of the
new version on: 		February 20, 2015
(Art. 4 of February 17, 2015)
Last change by: Art. 17 G of October 13, 2016
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2258, 2347 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		January 1, 2017
(Art. 25 G of October 13, 2016)
GESTA : E038
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Ordinance on the EEG Equalization Mechanism ( Equalization Mechanisms Ordinance - AusglMechV) is a statutory ordinance issued under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2010). It changes the marketing of electricity generated from renewable energies from January 1, 2010 . Since the ordinance came into force, this has to be sold by the nationwide transmission system operators instead of being purchased by the end consumers' supply companies as was previously the case.

The additional costs resulting from the generation of EEG electricity will, however, continue to be charged to the utility companies and thus also to the end users via an EEG surcharge . In addition, the AusglMechV contains regulations for the more transparent calculation of the EEG surcharge. Although the AusglMechV is not a law, it intervenes deeply in the EEG.

The reformed rolling mechanism resolved by the regulation is considered to be the decisive factor for the rapid increase in the EEG surcharge after the regulation came into force.

Legal basis

The AusglMechV was enacted by the federal government with the consent of the Bundestag based on the authorization of Section 64 (3) EEG, according to which, for the purpose of further developing the nationwide compensation mechanism, extensive changes are made to the compensation provided for in the EEG for the additional costs arising from the generation of EEG electricity and its marketing on the ordinance are provided. Previously, the additional costs incurred when generating electricity from renewable energies compared to generating electricity from fossil fuels or nuclear power , which the electricity consuming grid operators pay to the producers, were passed on to the transmission grid operators operating at the federal level, which were then passed on after implementation a nationwide compensation between all transmission network operators, the electricity in turn to the electricity supply companies, which have previously been obliged to purchase the EEG electricity on a pro rata basis, continue to charge these costs. The utility companies then eventually burdened the final consumer with these costs. The calculation of the additional costs resulting from the EEG electricity was previously subject to the control of the Federal Network Agency , but their determination was not very transparent. Therefore, in the version of the EEG that came into effect on January 1, 2009, the Federal Government was authorized to change the compensation mechanism, but actually the entire marketing and treatment of the additional costs for EEG electricity by means of a statutory ordinance. The new regulation only applies to electricity generated from January 1, 2010, but the ordinance is already to be applied when it is enacted insofar as forecasts are to be published in the previous year with regard to the additional costs incurred in 2010, which are levied as the EEG surcharge are.

Reasons for reform

Various reasons were given for the reform. Supporters were above all the liberal economic politicians of the FDP as well as the large electricity supply companies with their lobby organizations such as the Initiative New Social Market Economy .

The EEG electricity fed into the networks of the public distribution network operators and forwarded by them to the transmission network operators had to be physically divided between the electricity supply companies, who could then use it to supply their customers again on a pro rata basis. According to the explanatory memorandum to the Regulation on Compensation Mechanisms, there was considerable effort due to the lack of sufficient predictability of the quantities produced, which was reflected in the network charges and led to financial risks for the suppliers: "The physical compensation therefore harbors risks in the procurement portfolio for the sales company." Discard companies through the Equalization Mechanism Ordinance. As a result of the physical transmission of the EEG electricity, costs of around 570 million euros arose for 2007, of which 40 to 125 million euros could be saved when trading on the stock exchange, according to the reasons for the draft ordinance. The obligation of the supply companies to purchase a proportion of the EEG electricity resulted in a market foreclosure that was undesirable under European law , as the corresponding amount of electricity was taken from the free market because the suppliers could not buy elsewhere. In addition, according to the reasoning, the procedure is "not transparent to the outside world".

So far, the electricity supply companies have simply included their EEG electricity share as a base load band (monthly bands) in their electricity load profile planning. However, since the average price of renewable energies was remunerated without taking daily fluctuations in the feed-in into account, the cheapest conventional share in the dealer portfolio would tend to be displaced.

marketing

The reorganization of marketing begins with the fourth stage regulated in the EEG, the forwarding of EEG electricity from the transmission system operators to the electricity suppliers ( Section 37 EEG). The obligation of the transmission system operator to pass on the EEG electricity to the supply company, or their obligation to purchase this electricity, is repealed ( Section 1 No. 1 and 2 AusglMechV), so that the EEG electricity remains physically with the transmission system operator. According to Section 2 (1) AusglMechV, they are now obliged to auction the EEG electricity on the day-ahead or intraday spot market ( day-ahead and intra-day trading ) of an electricity exchange as best possible. It does not have to be the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in Leipzig , every public electricity exchange can be considered.

After the nunmehrige commissioning of transmission system operators with marketing because of the European Union operated unbundling (unbundling) of the networks is from the power supply in conflict, which should Bundesnetzagentur submit an evaluation by 31 December 2011 and proposals for transferring the task of marketing the Submit EEG electricity to third parties ( Section 9 AusglMechV). The Federal Network Agency has also been authorized to issue statutory ordinances that regulate the details of marketing, including commissioning third parties for this purpose. Marketing on the exchange may not take place as EEG electricity or "green electricity", as the requirement of Section 37 (5) EEG remains, according to which electricity under this special designation is not below the average remuneration paid by the manufacturer for EEG electricity may be sold.

Compensation (EEG surcharge)

In order to compensate for the additional costs incurred in generating the EEG electricity, the AusglMechV now gives the term EEG surcharge a precisely defined content. According to this, the transmission system operators (or later the third parties commissioned with the marketing) can demand partial reimbursement of the necessary expenses in the form of an EEG surcharge from the electricity companies who deliver electricity to end consumers ( Section 3 (1) AusglMechV). The EEG surcharge is calculated once based on the difference between the revenue forecast for the following calendar year, primarily from the sale of EEG electricity on the exchange and the expenses, here primarily because of the remuneration payments under the EEG. On the other hand, a difference between the actual income and expenditure at the time of the calculation is included. This refers to the actual excess or shortfall in income that would arise in the event of a discrepancy between this income and expenditure and the forecast for the current year in the previous year, and which would only be zero if the forecast would correspond to the actual occurrence ( Section 3 Para . 2 AusglMechV).

After this procedure was used for the first time for 2010, but for 2009 it is billed according to the previous provisions of the EEG, actual deviations from the forecast for 2010 are only taken into account in the surcharge calculated for 2011. The EEG surcharge must be calculated every year by October 15 for the following calendar year and published on the Internet. The levy must also be stated in cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity delivered to the end consumer. For 2010, the forecast for 2010 was announced at 2.047 cents / kWh. The new system of the EEG surcharge creates a precise calculation basis for everyone involved, as it is fixed for the current year; actual deviations from the forecast only have an effect on the surcharge for the following year. The EEG surcharge replaces the differential costs of §§ 53, 55 EEG, which were only introduced with the EEG 2009 as a benchmark for recording the additional EEG costs ( § 8 AusglMechV). If the utility company makes use of its right to indicate the EEG electricity costs on the electricity bill, it must now state the EEG surcharge with the likely share of the electricity paid for under the EEG in the expected overall German electricity mix ( Section 8 (2) AusglMechV ).

Favoring electricity-intensive production companies and railways

According to Section 40 (1) EEG, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) can limit their obligation to purchase EEG electricity at the request of electricity-intensive companies in the manufacturing industry and railways. The limitation is in order to keep the electricity costs of these companies at an internationally competitive level. It is carried out with a percentage that ensures that, as a result, the companies concerned are not charged with more than 0.05 cents per kWh they purchase ( Section 40 (2) EEG). The limitation of the amount of EEG electricity to be consumed in this way was therefore a prognostic value. Since after the new regulation neither utility companies nor end consumers have to purchase EEG electricity, the AusglMechV changes the preferential treatment of electricity-intensive companies so that they can now definitely only be charged with an EEG surcharge of 0.05 cents / kWh, i.e. about one fortieth of the normal surcharge of 2.047 ct / kWh applicable for 2010.

Effects

Development of the EEG surcharge before (blue) and after (orange) the AusglMechV came into force

Before the Equalization Mechanism Ordinance, EEG electricity was physically rolled over and there was no trading on the electricity exchange. While companies were obliged to incorporate electricity from renewable energies into their own sales portfolio, for which they were remunerated from the EEG account, with the compensation mechanism regulation, the EEG electricity was now completely traded on the electricity exchange. Since the supply of EEG electricity increased there, the market price fell as a result of the merit order effect , as the (price-forming) more expensive (fossil) power plants were used less and less. Since the EEG surcharge is calculated from the difference between the feed-in tariff and the exchange price, the EEG surcharge increased significantly. Large companies that bought their electricity directly on the stock exchange benefited from this, especially since many of these companies are largely exempt from paying the EEG surcharge. For private customers and end consumers, on the other hand, there were price increases in the electricity bill, as they did not benefit from the lower stock exchange prices, but had to pay a higher EEG surcharge.

The introduction of the new compensation mechanism thus had a strong impact on the feed-in of renewable energies and coal-fired power plants . Until 2009, renewable energies had both a feed-in priority and a consumption priority. If a lot of renewable electricity was fed into the grid, conventional power plants had to be switched off so that electricity from renewable energies was used in Germany. With the reform, the priority of consumption was abolished, which resulted in a sharp increase in coal electricity production, as this no longer necessarily had to be throttled when there was a strong feed-in of renewable energies. The electricity that was now also produced on a large scale could instead be exported to other countries. The demand for green electricity in Germany was thus massively reduced, which resulted in a significant drop in electricity prices on the exchange and thus made the EEG surcharge more expensive. After the new equalization mechanism came into force, revenues for green electricity on the electricity exchange fell from 5.15 billion euros in 2009 to 3.35 billion euros in 2010, despite higher generation. Subsequently, electricity prices on the exchange fell further due to the merit order effect, so that electricity prices on the exchange in the first quarter of 2014 were only half of the value of 2008.

As a result, the difference in costs between the electricity price on the exchange and the average feed-in tariff according to the EEG increased significantly, as a result of which the EEG surcharge rose disproportionately. Until 2009 the increase in remuneration payments according to the EEG and the development of the EEG surcharge were largely proportional, after the reform there was a sharp divergence. While the remuneration payments doubled from EUR 10.5 billion to a good EUR 21 billion between 2009 and 2014, the EEG surcharge almost quintupled in the same period from 1.33 ct / kWh to 6.24 ct / kWh. The total of the stock exchange price plus the EEG levy, however, remained almost constant. As a further consequence, the income from EEG-paid electricity halved between 2009 and 2014, although the capacity was almost doubled. Since 2014, the EEG surcharge has risen only insignificantly from 6.240 cents per kWh to the current 6.405 cents per kWh despite a further increase in the feed-in of subsidized electricity. The feed-in quantities rose from 131 TWh in 2014 to 203 TWh in 2018.

The reason for the initially strong increase in the EEG surcharge was the reformed equalization mechanism. According to Fraunhofer ISE, there is therefore a large discrepancy between the increased funding for renewable energies on the one hand and the EEG surcharge, which has increased several times over. However, since 2014 the further increase in the EEG surcharge has been significantly weaker than the increase in remuneration payments. While the remuneration payments for subsidized electricity increased by more than 50 from 21 billion euros in 2014 to 32 billion euros in 2018, the EEG surcharge rose by only 8.8% in the same period.

The occurrence of these effects was anticipated even before the reform of the compensation mechanism. As early as 2009 Jarass et al pointed out that the further development of the equalization mechanism would have major disadvantages for the marketing of EEG electricity. In doing so, they largely anticipated the development of the electricity market . So be u. a. the obligation of electricity network operators from the efficient marketing of EEG electricity is planned and electricity supply companies are released from the obligation to purchase EEG electricity proportionately in production. Since it would be possible for companies and power supply companies to forego the purchase of EEG electricity entirely, there would be a massive drop in demand for EEG electricity, which would therefore be largely devalued.

"If, however, conventional power plants were allowed to continue producing at full capacity even with massive EEG feed-in, then major problems would result: The transmission system operator would then often only achieve a very low exchange price for EEG electricity, much lower, as if - as before - the electricity supply companies supplying end users had to take over and market the EEG electricity. This artificially creates a very high difference between the EEG feed-in price and the sales proceeds achieved on the electricity exchange and thus shows an apparently very high subsidy from the EEG and thus possibly discredits the EEG. "

- Lorenz Jarass, Gustav M. Obermair, Wilfried Voigt, wind energy. Reliable integration into the energy supply , Berlin - Heidelberg 2009, p. 108

The allocation requirement for the following year was repeatedly estimated too low. For example, the surcharge for 2012 set in autumn 2011 did not take into account the fact that in December 2011 a large number of solar systems went into operation that additionally fed in solar power in 2012, which was only made up for in the surcharge for 2013.

In addition, Section 4 Clause 2 of the Equalization Mechanism Ordinance can lead to a false prognosis. There it says that the forecast of the income from the sale of renewable electricity must be based on the average of the daily settlement prices for the Phelix Baseload Year Future product on the electricity exchange for the following calendar year. The trading period from June 16 to September 15 of the current calendar year is decisive. However, this was often higher than the average achieved for the electricity fed in from renewable energies. If the income was set too high, the subsidy requirement for the following year was often underestimated at first, which then has to be compensated for in the year after next.

In the years 2010 to 2013, the EEG account was in the red. This deficit led to a higher EEG surcharge in the following year. After 2014, the EEG account was no longer in the red, but resulted in a surplus every year, which was then taken into account in the following year and dampened the increase in the surcharge.

Web links

literature

  • Martin Altrock / Andreas Eder: Ordinance for the further development of the EEG compensation mechanism (AusglMechV): A first critical consideration. ZNER 2009, 128-131.
  • Christian Buchmüller / Jörn Schnutenhaus: The further development of the EEG compensation mechanism. ET 11/2009, 75-79.
  • Lorenz Jarass / Wilfried Voigt: The new EEG compensation mechanism can endanger the expansion of renewable energies. Energiewirtschaftliche Tagesfragen 59 (2009), Issue 10, 26–29, online .
  • Volker Oschmann: Law for the priority of renewable energies (Renewable Energies Act - EEG). In: Wolfgang Danner / Christian Theobald (eds.), Energierecht, as of January 2010, Munich, Verlag CH Beck, ISBN 978-3-406-36464-8 .
  • Anke Rostankowski / Volker Oschmann: Fit for the future? - For the reorganization of the EEG compensation mechanism and further reform approaches. RdE 2009, pp. 361–368.
  • Peter Salje : Renewable Energy Sources Act. Comment. 5th edition 2009, Cologne and Munich, Carl Heymanns Verlag, ISBN 978-3-452-26935-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Erik Gawel , Klaas Korte, Kerstin Tews: Distributional Challenges of Sustainability Policies — The Case of the German Energy Transition . In: Sustainability . tape 7 , 2015, p. 16599-16615 , doi : 10.3390 / su71215834 .
  2. ↑ WDR, 2012: "Die Einflüsterer - How money makes politics", television documentary
  3. ↑ Claudia Kemfert : Struggle for electricity: Myths, power and monopolies . Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86774-257-3 .
  4. ^ Rationale for the draft, BT-Drs. 16/13188 , p. 8
  5. ^ Rationale for the draft, BT-Drs. 16/13188 , p. 9
  6. ↑ a b Rationale for the draft, BT-Drs. 16/13188 , p. 1
  7. ↑ a b EEG rolling mechanism, suggestions for improving transparency and efficiency ( memento from January 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) on behalf of the BMU. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  8. ^ Rationale for the draft, BT-Drs. 16/13188 , p. 16
  9. ^ Rationale for the draft, BT-Drs. 16/13188 , p. 15
  10. ^ EEG surcharge 2010 ( Memento from December 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Peter Salje: Renewable Energies Act, Commentary, 5th ed. 2009, Cologne and Munich, Carl Heymanns Verlag, ISBN 978-3-452-26935-5 , § 40 Rn 1
  12. ↑ a b Sandra Hook, 'Energiewende': From International Climate Agreements to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act , in: Olaf Kühne, Florian Weber (ed.), Building Blocks of the Energiewende . Wiesbaden 2018, 21–56, p. 42f.
  13. ↑ a b Lorenz Jarass , Reform of the EEG: Reintroduce priority consumption for renewable energies, abolish feed-in guarantee for coal-fired electricity . In: Zeitschrift für neue Energierecht 6, (2013), 572-580, Link
  14. ↑ a b c d Short study on the historical development of the EEG surcharge ( Memento from June 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems . Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  15. ↑ Daniel Hölder, Real-Time Circulation - Integrating Renewable Electricity in the Competition for Customers. Proposal for the further development of the compensation mechanism . Journal for New Energy Law 18 (2014) Issue 1, 14–18, p. 14.
  16. ↑ a b Development of the EEG surcharge . Netztransparenz.de. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
  17. ↑ a b EEG in figures: payments, differential costs and EEG surcharge 2000 to 2019 . BMWi website. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
  18. ↑ See, among others, the EEG surcharge - a real burden that does not actually come about . Website by Udo Leuschner ; Determination of options to lower the EEG surcharge ( Memento from November 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Lorenz Jarass, Gustav M. Obermair, Wilfried Voigt, Windenergie. Reliable integration into the energy supply , Berlin - Heidelberg 2009, p. 107f.
  20. ↑ https://www.buzer.de/gesetz/11489/b29257.htm
  21. ↑ https://www.netztransparenz.de/EEG/EEG-Konten-Uebersicht