High-level government talks in Berlin that started yesterday evening have agreed to the offshore wind industry's demand to increase capacity to 20GW by 2030 from 15GW previously.

“We welcome the step of the federal government to increase the expansion target for offshore wind in Germany from 15 to 20GW and believe that this is a significant step to meet the goal of 65% renewable energy in 2030,” said a spokesperson for offshore wind association BWO.

“Even if 20GW of installed offshore power cannot save the energy transition alone in 2030, the increase in expansion targets is nevertheless an important step towards achieving the target of 65% renewable energy in the same year,” the spokesperson said.

However, the association said the planned increase of the expansion cap by 5GW in the German North Sea and Baltic Sea, though welcome, is “overdue”.

“The most important thing now will be to bring together the operators of offshore wind farms, the transmission system operators as well as the federal and state governments as soon as possible in order to start implementation together,” said BWO managing director Uwe Knickrehm.

"The operators of the offshore wind farms and their association, the BWO, have been proposing such a round for some time and stand for constructive cooperation,” he said.

The governmental meeting took place in Berlin over the course of around 15 hours ending this afternoon.