Focus on renewable energies

Tradi­tio­nally, there are five sectors in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies: Hydro­power, wind energy, solar energy, geother­mal energy and rene­wa­ble resour­ces (bioen­ergy).

• The gene­ra­tion of hydro­power is costly and regu­larly leads to massive inter­ven­ti­ons in nature. The market will deve­lop slowly here.
• Wind energy is alre­ady used to a large extent in Germany. There are many wind fields with the conse­quence that there are few sites for new fields. For a new wind field, one has to reckon with about ten years from the idea to the first gene­ra­tion of elec­tri­city from wind energy. Whether offshore wind power gene­ra­tion will prevail remains to be seen. The expen­ses for this are considera­ble. The market for wind energy will ther­e­fore conti­nue to deve­lop, albeit not as stor­mily as before.
• Solar energy has won many friends in recent years. It should be noted, howe­ver, that it was consider­a­bly subsi­di­zed, at least in Germany. Another disad­van­tage of solar energy is that it can only be gene­ra­ted when the sun is shining. For use beyond the home, the issue of storage capa­city and grid swit­ching must be resol­ved. There will be signi­fi­cant efforts here in the future. Here, too, the market will ther­e­fore not deve­lop excessively.
• The use of and market for geother­mal energy will be slow in the coming years. It is still too uncer­tain what lasting conse­quen­ces the inter­ven­tion in nature will bring.
• Bioen­ergy promi­ses the grea­test growth poten­tial in the over­all view of nature compa­ti­bi­lity, visual impact on the land­scape and ener­ge­tic efficiency.

The extra­c­tion of hydro­elec­tric power will remain the preserve of the large corpo­ra­ti­ons. It is not suita­ble for private house­holds to gene­rate their own energy. There will be no signi­fi­cant inves­tor invol­vement. The same, although for diffe­rent reasons, applies to the extra­c­tion of geother­mal energy.

The situa­tion is diffe­rent for the gene­ra­tion of wind energy and solar energy. Both natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors will conti­nue to expand these areas. Germany alre­ady has a leading posi­tion in the field of wind energy, so the poten­tial for increase is compa­ra­tively small. In the area of solar energy, it remains to be seen when poli­ti­ci­ans will consider further cuts in subsi­dies. — The commit­ment of German and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in the field of bioen­ergy, on the other hand, appears to be unbroken.

There are no parti­cu­lar comple­xi­ties in M&A tran­sac­tions in the rene­wa­ble energy sector. Of course, it “does no harm” if the consul­tants working in this area have at least a basic know­ledge of the actual subject matter. Howe­ver, this does not distin­gu­ish (legal) advice in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies from advice in other specia­li­zed fields.