The European Commission plans to open proceedings on Wednesday against Germany's renewable energy law on the grounds that it breaches EU competition regulations. Under the law, German electricity users pay a charge that goes towards funding renewable energy generation. Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia believes that exemptions granted to some energy-intensive German companies from those charges run counter to EU law.

The Commission plans to launch proceedings aimed not only at banning such exemptions in the future, but also requiring companies to repay the charges they were exempted from in the past.

Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger even called the entire renewable energy law into question in remarks to a conference hosted by German energy company E.on last week.

Too Many Exemptions?

Oettinger said many provisions in the law appeared to be in breach of EU single market rules and competition law. For example, he said, it wasn't acceptable that Germay subsidizes its own wind power but makes no subsidies available to operators from Denmark and Norway that deliver windpower to Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/european-commission-plans-to-probe-german-renewable-energy-law-a-911139.html