Germany's EEG 2027 draft ends the feed-in tariff. Why the PPA moves to the centre

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On 29 July 2026 the federal cabinet passed the government draft of the EEG-Novelle 2027, together with a separate grid-connection package. The stated aim is to develop the EEG from a comprehensive state support system toward a market-based, system- and grid-oriented investment framework, with entry into force planned for 1 January 2027. This is a draft, so the detail can still shift as the Bundestag takes it up, but the direction is set and it changes how new renewable projects will earn their revenue.

The central change for operators is that the feed-in tariff for new wind, solar and biomass plants comes to an end. New plants are brought step by step into direct marketing, so that price signals reach the plant rather than being smoothed away by a fixed payment. A temporary transitional payment is available to ease that shift for the plants that need it.

Support does not disappear, it changes shape. Under the draft, investment is secured through two-sided Contracts for Difference. In periods of high prices the excess profit is skimmed off, flows back and reduces the cost of support. For a project that means the CfD protects the downside and caps the upside at the same time, which is a different instrument from the one-way premium operators have planned around until now.

The draft is also explicit that plants able to finance themselves directly on the market build outside the EEG entirely. That turns the route-to-market decision into a real fork for new build. A project either takes the CfD, accepting that strong price years are clawed back in return for a secured value, or it finances itself on the market through a PPA and keeps the upside that the CfD would have skimmed. Existing plants are protected and keep their assured support for the full term, so this is a question for new build from 2027, not for the operating fleet.

The framing is what matters here. Under the current EEG the PPA has been the alternative to the subsidy. Under EEG 2027 the market route becomes the default, and the PPA is how a new plant secures bankable revenue once the fixed tariff is gone. The decision turns on the variables that have always separated a strong PPA from a weak one: the site capture profile, the buyer landscape, the tenor on offer and how price risk is shared in the contract. What changes is that these questions now sit at the centre of the investment case rather than at its edge.

None of this settles the choice in advance. For some sites and some balance sheets a secured CfD value is the right call, and for others the market route with a well-structured PPA will price the same generation higher over the life of the asset. The point is that the trade-off has moved, and a decision that used to be a default now deserves to be modelled asset by asset before a project is committed.

Synertics works with operators across European markets to weigh the subsidy route against a structured PPA for the individual asset rather than the system in aggregate. SEMT brings market intelligence, PPA origination and revenue monitoring together in one place. To think through what EEG 2027 could mean for your own route to market, sign up at https://synertics.io/signup/ or reach us at info@synertics.io.