According to Rainer Baake, a state secretary of Germany's economy and energy ministry, the European Commission (EC) has ruled that Germany's current system for supporting renewables, which involves exemptions from tariffs to energy-intensive industries to keep them competitive on the global market, are permissible. The decision comes despite EU rules against state aid to companies, in virtue of the fact that the exemptions are aimed at meeting the EU's binding target to meet 20% of energy demand from renewables by 2020. For 2030, however, Germany has a goal of meeting 50% of its power demand from renewables—much higher than any EU-wide targets that are likely to be implemented—and it is unclear how the exemptions will play out with EU regulators in that case. "We know we won't get agreement on a 50% EU renewables target for 2030, but we want to make sure that if we agree on 27% or 30%, nobody prohibits us from moving further ahead," said Baake.
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