So I noted with interest the failure of the first test case for the auction model. The auction price turned out to be above what the current feed-in tariff is, as this article at PV Magazine explains. Those first 154.97 MW will be built at €0.917per kWh, which is higher than the current €0.0902 of the feed-in tariff.

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.

When the feed-in tariff was enacted in the first place, that was done by a democratically elected coalition of the Green and the Social Democrat Parties. When it was ended in 2014, it was done on orders from the Commission, who is not democratically elected by anyone, and who has no business whatsoever to give the German legislators any orders in this situation.

The German Federal Court of Justice has published a decision from June 25 on an attempt to resist the German feed-in tariff system.

The parties of the German government have introduced a proposal for surcharge industry rebates on May 20. I would like to highlight and briefly discuss two points.

Here is yet another reason why the reductions German energy intensive industry gets when paying surcharges are not subsidies, and therefore none of the EU Commission’s business.