Interview with Thorsten Freise

Challenges of the energy transition

Berlin (energate) – The Berlin-based investment company Saxovent started out as a wind project developer in 1997. In the meantime, the product portfolio has expanded and the company is also active as an investor. In an interview with energate, Saxovent COO Thorsten Freise talks about the current challenges in the renewables business: grid connections, bureaucracy, approval processes and the PPA business.

energate: Mr. Freise, Saxovent has been active as a wind project developer since 1997. Today you cover the entire renewables portfolio. How has the business changed in over 20 years?

Thorsten Freise: A planning application for a wind farm used to be eight
up to ten pages long. Today it fills more than 40 folders. The effort involved has increased enormously. The original version of the EEG was initially barely thicker than a paperback book, but is now the size of the German Civil Code. The approval processes drag on endlessly and the digitalization of procedures has not really made any progress so far.

energate: How could this be accelerated?

Thorsten Freise: The entire approval process needs to be reformed and digitized. One current issue is the countless inquiries about immature storage projects. These block the capacities of network operators and authorities. Although only a small proportion of these projects are ready for approval, for example because the necessary requirements are not met, they are nevertheless submitted ahead of schedule. For some network operators, processing is not realistic until the 2030s – by then, many projects will have long since died.

energate: How are you as a company reacting to these changes? Are you focusing more on market-based electricity sales?

Thorsten Freise: We are already operating outside the EEG in the area of our PV rooftop portfolios. Electricity is marketed via self-consumption by the users of the buildings. Our storage projects also work without subsidies. We are currently intensively reviewing PPA contracts for our wind portfolio – both the existing portfolio and permits. This is already standard for the continued operation of decommissioned wind farms. However, the market is tight and it is difficult to conclude long-term PPAs. We are also trying to bundle generation capacities with partners through cooperative ventures in order to be able to supply larger industrial customers. Significant generation units and volumes are required to meet the needs of larger industrial customers and to reliably supply this customer group with green electricity. Nevertheless, the EEG remains an important fall-back option.

energate: What does the future hold for Saxovent?

Thorsten Freise: I can wish for higher tender values, but that is neither realistic nor to be expected. Instead, we will have to deal with changes to the Grid Charges and Access Ordinance. The integration of storage systems into the grid and the projects will take up a considerable amount of space. If the projects have to bear a large part of the grid expansion costs in the future, or if the construction of green electricity storage systems becomes mandatory, these are certainly additional challenges. We cannot and will not be able to develop every area of renewables ourselves in the future; it is too time-consuming and cost-intensive. We are therefore increasingly focusing on investments and acquisitions in order to expand our value chain. We want to achieve diversified growth in all technology areas and market segments – with clear decisions on what we do ourselves and where we bring partners into play.