Final EEG 2027 draft and agrivoltaics: what really changes for remuneration and support

10 min read · Updat­ed on 22 Octo­ber 2026

Yes­ter­day (17 July 2026), the draft EEG 2027 was pub­lished for the upcom­ing con­sul­ta­tions. The draft is to be adopt­ed by the fed­er­al cab­i­net on 29 July 2026. For agri­v­oltaics, the bill brings the most far-reach­ing change to the sup­port sys­tem since the cat­e­go­ry was intro­duced. Ylek­tra GmbH assess­es the changes, dis­tin­guish­ing between sys­tems up to 1 MW and sys­tems over 1 MW, and shows why many of the changes go exact­ly in the direc­tion we called for in our posi­tion paper on agri­v­oltaics.

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The most important EEG 2027 changes for agrivoltaics at a glance

• The ten­der thresh­old for agri­v­oltaics remains at 1 MW. The 750 kW thresh­old of Solar Pack­age I applies only to rooftop sys­tems (sec­ond seg­ment), not to ground-mount­ed sys­tems includ­ing agri­v­oltaics.
• The applic­a­ble val­ue is stan­dard­ised at 6.2 ct/kWh (pre­vi­ous­ly 7.0 ct/kWh) for sys­tems exempt from ten­ders.
• Ele­va­tion bonus of +0.5 ct/kWh for agri­v­oltaics, apply­ing both to high­ly ele­vat­ed sys­tems (cat­e­go­ry I, at least 2.10 m) and to ver­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed sys­tems (at least 0.80 m, typ­i­cal of ground-lev­el ver­ti­cal agri­v­olta­ic con­cepts). Both cat­e­gories under DIN SPEC 91434 are cov­ered.
• The ded­i­cat­ed sub-seg­ment for spe­cial solar instal­la­tions (Sec­tion 37d EEG 2023) is abol­ished. Agri­v­oltaics will in future com­pete direct­ly with stan­dard ground-mount­ed solar in the first seg­ment, and is com­pet­i­tive if projects are designed effi­cient­ly.
• The ten­der vol­ume in the first seg­ment ris­es to 14,000 MW per year, which means sig­nif­i­cant­ly more oppor­tu­ni­ties in the com­pe­ti­tion.
• Relief on proof oblig­a­tions: if proof is miss­ing, only –0.5 ct/kWh instead of a reduc­tion to zero, and lat­er sub­mis­sion cures the short­fall.
• The pay­ment enti­tle­ment pro­ce­dure is abol­ished; in return, the bid must refer bind­ing­ly to land parcels.
• Manda­to­ry direct mar­ket­ing from 25 kW, refi­nanc­ing con­tri­bu­tion (CfD) from 100 kW.

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What is the EEG 2027 and why is it decisive for agrivoltaics?

With the EEG 2027, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment imple­ments the EU require­ments for intro­duc­ing two-way con­tracts for dif­fer­ence (CfDs) and fun­da­men­tal­ly reor­gan­is­es solar sup­port. The bill is sched­uled for cab­i­net on 29 July 2026; the con­sul­ta­tion of asso­ci­a­tions is run­ning in par­al­lel.

For oper­a­tors and devel­op­ers of agri­v­oltaics, the amend­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant because both remu­ner­a­tion lev­els and pro­ce­dur­al rules shift con­sid­er­ably. Ylek­tra devel­ops agri­v­olta­ic projects across Ger­many and sup­ports farm­ers, investors and munic­i­pal­i­ties from land secu­ri­ty to com­mis­sion­ing. The fol­low­ing assess­ment is based on a detailed analy­sis of the bill and its explana­to­ry mem­o­ran­dum, and is at the same time a check against our Ylek­tra posi­tion paper on agri­v­oltaics.

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Agrivoltaics support up to 1 MW: exempt from tenders, but readjusted

Sys­tems with an installed capac­i­ty of up to 1 MW remain exempt from the ten­der oblig­a­tion. A statu­to­ry applic­a­ble val­ue con­tin­ues to apply to them. This val­ue has been adjust­ed at sev­er­al points in the EEG 2027.

Uniform applicable value of 6.2 ct/kWh

The pre­vi­ous­ly dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed applic­a­ble val­ue for solar sys­tems exempt from ten­ders is set uni­form­ly at 6.2 cents per kilo­watt-hour under Sec­tion 48(1) of the draft. Pre­vi­ous­ly the val­ue was 7.0 ct/kWh, with spe­cial sur­charges for rooftop and full feed-in sys­tems. For ground-mount­ed agri­v­oltaics, the reduc­tion com­pared with the pre­vi­ous rule is mod­er­ate, but it is notice­able for com­bined mar­ket­ing con­cepts with a full feed-in bonus.

Elevation bonus of +0.5 ct/kWh: technology-open for category I and category II

The bonus for “spe­cial solar instal­la­tions” is set at +0.5 ct/kWh under Sec­tion 48(1b) no. 1 of the draft. The link to spe­cif­ic ele­va­tion heights is designed to be tech­nol­o­gy-open: the bonus is grant­ed for an ele­va­tion of at least 2.10 m clear­ance (for hor­i­zon­tal­ly ori­ent­ed mod­ules) or at least 0.80 m (for ver­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed solar sys­tems). This cov­ers both basic types of agri­v­oltaics under DIN SPEC 91434: the high­ly ele­vat­ed sys­tems of cat­e­go­ry I as well as ground-lev­el cat­e­go­ry II con­cepts with ver­ti­cal bifa­cial mod­ules.

In our view, the lev­el of the bonus for 1 MW sys­tems is low com­pared with Solar Pack­age I, but can still enable attrac­tive invest­ments. In our posi­tion paper on agri­v­oltaics we stressed that sup­port for agri­v­oltaics should not be exces­sive, so that only effi­cient and gen­uine­ly eco­nom­ic sys­tems are realised. The bill takes up exact­ly this log­ic: a mod­er­ate bonus cre­ates fair com­pen­sa­tion for the addi­tion­al tech­ni­cal effort with­out dis­tort­ing the sup­port sys­tem. Our projects are designed so that they can com­pete on price with stan­dard ground-mount­ed solar even with a bonus of this size.

Significant relief on proof obligations

For the first time since the proof oblig­a­tions were intro­duced, the sanc­tion mech­a­nism is soft­ened. Under Sec­tion 48(5) of the draft, if proof of agri­cul­tur­al use is miss­ing, the applic­a­ble val­ue will in future be reduced only by the bonus of 0.5 ct/kWh. In addi­tion: if the proof is sub­mit­ted in the fol­low­ing year, the reduc­tion no longer applies going for­ward.

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Agrivoltaics remuneration above 1 MW: a new competitive framework in the first segment

Sys­tems with an installed capac­i­ty of more than 1 MW must take part in ten­ders. This is where the min­istry draft of the EEG 2027 makes the most far-reach­ing changes.

Abolition of the sub-segment for special solar installations

Per­haps the most impor­tant change: Sec­tion 37d EEG 2023 is delet­ed. This removes the ded­i­cat­ed sub-seg­ment for spe­cial solar instal­la­tions (agri­v­oltaics, car park solar, float­ing solar, peat­land solar), which until now had its own ten­ders and its own, high­er max­i­mum val­ue.

In future, agri­v­oltaics will bid against stan­dard ground-mount­ed solar in the shared first seg­ment. The +0.5 ct bonus (Sec­tion 38a of the draft) for ele­vat­ed or ver­ti­cal sys­tems com­pen­sates appro­pri­ate­ly for the addi­tion­al tech­ni­cal effort with­out over­stat­ing the sup­port sys­tem. Ylek­tra express­ly sup­ports this approach: effi­cient­ly designed agri­v­olta­ic sys­tems are price-com­pet­i­tive even in shared com­pe­ti­tion with ground-mount­ed solar. With this, the leg­is­la­tor imple­ments the line set out in our posi­tion paper: avoid over-com­pen­sa­tion and cre­ate incen­tives for gen­uine­ly eco­nom­ic sys­tems.

Uniform maximum value of 5.9 ct/kWh

Under Sec­tion 37b of the draft, the max­i­mum val­ue for solar sys­tems in the first seg­ment is set dynam­i­cal­ly as the aver­age of the last three award results plus 8 %, but capped at 5.9 ct/kWh. The pre­vi­ous­ly high­er val­ue of the spe­cial sub-seg­ment no longer applies. The +0.5 ct bonus comes on top.

Tender volume rises to 14,000 MW per year

Under Sec­tion 28a(2) of the draft, the ten­der vol­ume for solar sys­tems in the first seg­ment is raised to 14,000 MW per year, a sig­nif­i­cant jump com­pared with a vol­ume of around 9.9 GW under the EEG 2023. For agri­v­olta­ic devel­op­ers, this basi­cal­ly means more oppor­tu­ni­ties in the bid­ding process.

Binding land parcel reference in the bid

New and struc­tural­ly rel­e­vant in prac­tice: under Sec­tion 38(1) no. 1 of the draft, the spe­cif­ic site must be named with land par­cel details when the bid is sub­mit­ted. The award is tied to this site. The pre­vi­ous flex­i­bil­i­ty to imple­ment the award at a dif­fer­ent site no longer applies.

For devel­op­ers this means: land secu­ri­ty and use agree­ments must be robust­ly in place before the bid is sub­mit­ted. Secur­ing farm­ers as coop­er­a­tion part­ners there­fore moves much ear­li­er in the project fun­nel.

Abolition of the payment entitlement procedure

A sig­nif­i­cant sim­pli­fi­ca­tion: the pay­ment enti­tle­ment pro­ce­dure under Sec­tion 38a EEG 2023 is abol­ished. Instead of the pre­vi­ous 26-month appli­ca­tion dead­line, time­ly com­mis­sion­ing with­in 24 months will suf­fice in future (Sec­tion 37e of the draft). The pay­ment enti­tle­ment penal­ty is removed entire­ly.

Removal of bidder-operator identity

Under the EEG 2023, the bid­der also had to be the oper­a­tor of the plant at the time of com­mis­sion­ing. This require­ment no longer applies under the EEG 2027. This makes it pos­si­ble to sell on awards, an impor­tant sig­nal for turnkey projects and insti­tu­tion­al investors.

Proof provided by a competent expert

Com­pli­ance with the cri­te­ria under Sec­tion 37(1a) of the draft will in future have to be con­firmed by a com­pe­tent expert such as a land­scape plan­ner, agri­cul­tur­al sci­en­tist or ecol­o­gist. The grid oper­a­tor is relieved of the tech­ni­cal review. Impor­tant for agri­v­oltaics: the cri­te­ria under Sec­tion 37(1a) of the draft apply to ground-mount­ed sites under Sec­tion 37(1) no. 1 and no. 2, not to agri­v­oltaics under no. 3. Agri­cul­tur­al use itself counts as suf­fi­cient eco­log­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Further changes at a glance

• Max­i­mum bid vol­ume of 50 MW per bid (Sec­tion 37(3) of the draft), now apply­ing uni­form­ly to all solar sys­tems in the first seg­ment.
• Project secu­ri­ty deposit refund­ed in full if at least 95 % is realised (Sec­tion 38d(6) sen­tence 2 of the draft), a prac­ti­cal relief for minor devi­a­tions in mod­ule out­put.
• Oblig­a­tion to reg­is­ter as a project before the bid­ding date (Sec­tion 37(1b) of the draft).

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Direct comparison: EEG 2023 vs. EEG 2027 for agrivoltaics

Cri­te­ri­on	EEG 2023	EEG 2027 (draft)
Ten­der thresh­old for agri­v­oltaics	> 1 MW	> 1 MW (unchanged)
Applic­a­ble val­ue up to 1 MW	7.0 ct/kWh	6.2 ct/kWh
Bonus for spe­cial solar instal­la­tions (agri­v­oltaics)	+2.5 ct/kWh, but nev­er approved by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion	+0.5 ct/kWh for ele­va­tion ≥ 2.10 m OR ver­ti­cal ≥ 0.80 m (cat­e­gories I and II)
Ded­i­cat­ed agri­v­oltaics sub-seg­ment	Yes (Sec­tion 37d)	Abol­ished
Max­i­mum val­ue, seg­ment 1	approx. 7.37 ct (sub-seg­ment)	5.9 ct/kWh
Ten­der vol­ume, seg­ment 1	approx. 9,900 MW/year	14,000 MW/year
Sanc­tion for miss­ing proof	Reduc­tion to zero	–0.5 ct/kWh, lat­er sub­mis­sion cures
Pay­ment enti­tle­ment pro­ce­dure	Yes	Abol­ished
Site bind­ing of the bid	Flex­i­ble	Bind­ing (land parcels)
Bid­der-oper­a­tor iden­ti­ty	Required	Removed

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What does this mean strategically for agrivoltaic projects?

From Ylek­tra’s per­spec­tive, three points are deci­sive for the com­ing project phas­es:

First, the lev­el of the +0.5 ct bonus can be suf­fi­cient for an attrac­tive invest­ment. It rewards the addi­tion­al tech­ni­cal effort of dual use with­out over­stat­ing the sup­port sys­tem. Ylek­tra’s projects are con­sis­tent­ly designed for effi­cien­cy and com­pet­i­tive­ness and can work even at this lev­el of remu­ner­a­tion. That is exact­ly the line we called for in our posi­tion paper on agri­v­oltaics.

Sec­ond, the abo­li­tion of the ded­i­cat­ed sub-seg­ment (Sec­tion 37d) is sys­tem­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant, but not an eco­nom­ic risk for well-designed agri­v­oltaics. Any­one who con­sis­tent­ly focus­es on effi­cien­cy in mod­ule choice, mount­ing struc­ture sta­t­ics and sys­tem design can hold their own against stan­dard ground-mount­ed solar in the shared first seg­ment. The bonus pro­vides the nec­es­sary com­pen­sa­tion for dual use.

Third, the new land par­cel bind­ing in the bid requires a restruc­tur­ing of the project pipeline. Farm­ers and land secu­ri­ty have to be inte­grat­ed into the process much ear­li­er.

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Frequently asked questions on the EEG 2027 and agrivoltaics

From what capacity do agrivoltaic systems have to take part in EEG tenders?

Under Sec­tion 22(3) sen­tence 2 of the draft, the ten­der oblig­a­tion for agri­v­oltaics as a ground-mount­ed sys­tem in the first seg­ment begins at an installed capac­i­ty of more than 1 MW. This thresh­old remains unchanged in the EEG 2027. The 750 kW thresh­old from Solar Pack­age I applies only to rooftop sys­tems (sec­ond seg­ment).

How high is agrivoltaics remuneration under the EEG 2027 draft published on 17 July 2026?

For agri­v­olta­ic sys­tems up to 1 MW that are exempt from ten­ders, a uni­form applic­a­ble val­ue of 6.2 ct/kWh applies under Sec­tion 48(1) of the draft, plus a +0.5 ct/kWh bonus for the appro­pri­ate ele­va­tion (Sec­tion 48(1b) no. 1 of the draft). For sys­tems over 1 MW that must take part in ten­ders, the award val­ue applies (max­i­mum val­ue 5.9 ct/kWh) plus the +0.5 ct/kWh bonus under Sec­tion 38a of the draft, again only with ele­va­tion.

What elevation is required for the agrivoltaics bonus?

The +0.5 ct/kWh bonus is grant­ed if the sys­tem as a whole is ele­vat­ed with a clear­ance of at least 2.10 m (hor­i­zon­tal­ly ori­ent­ed mod­ules) or at least 0.80 m with exclu­sive­ly ver­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed mod­ules. This cov­ers both the high­ly ele­vat­ed sys­tems (cat­e­go­ry I under DIN SPEC 91434) and the ground-lev­el ver­ti­cal sys­tems (cat­e­go­ry II). Both basic types of agri­v­oltaics can use the bonus.

What happens if proof of agricultural use is missing?

Under Sec­tion 48(5) of the draft, the applic­a­ble val­ue is reduced by 0.5 ct/kWh, no longer to zero as under the EEG 2023. If the proof for the past year is sub­mit­ted in the fol­low­ing year, the reduc­tion no longer applies going for­ward. The sanc­tion there­fore only has a lim­it­ed effect and is no longer a threat to the pro­jec­t’s exis­tence.

When does the EEG 2027 enter into force?

The bill is to be adopt­ed by the fed­er­al cab­i­net on 29 July 2026; the con­sul­ta­tion of asso­ci­a­tions is run­ning in par­al­lel. Entry into force is planned for 1 Jan­u­ary 2027. For awards and com­mis­sion­ing before this date, the tran­si­tion­al pro­vi­sions under Sec­tion 100 of the draft apply; in essence, the EEG 2023 remains applic­a­ble to exist­ing projects.

Is there still a dedicated segment for agrivoltaics in the EEG tenders?

No. Sec­tion 37d EEG 2023 is delet­ed. All spe­cial solar instal­la­tions (agri­v­oltaics, peat­land solar) will in future com­pete with stan­dard ground-mount­ed solar in the shared first seg­ment. Some flex­i­bil­i­ty remains between the sites under Sec­tion 37(1) no. 3(a) to © and (e).

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Ylektra’s assessment and recommendation

In our view, the EEG 2027 bill sets the right impuls­es: it brings impor­tant sim­pli­fi­ca­tions (abo­li­tion of the pay­ment enti­tle­ment pro­ce­dure, a soft­ened sanc­tion for miss­ing proof, sig­nif­i­cant­ly more ten­der vol­ume, open­ing up to insti­tu­tion­al investors), and it embeds agri­v­oltaics in a fair com­pet­i­tive frame­work.

The +0.5 ct bonus com­bined with a tech­nol­o­gy-open ele­va­tion rule (2.10 m hor­i­zon­tal OR 0.80 m ver­ti­cal) cov­ers both basic types of agri­v­oltaics and is cal­i­brat­ed at exact­ly the right lev­el. At Ylek­tra we express­ly rec­om­mend­ed this in our posi­tion paper on agri­v­oltaics: sup­port should recog­nise dual use with­out sub­si­dis­ing inef­fi­cient projects. Com­pe­ti­tion in the shared first seg­ment ensures that only those sys­tems pre­vail that are tech­ni­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly con­vinc­ing.

For farm­ers, landown­ers and investors this means: agri­v­oltaics remains eco­nom­i­cal­ly attrac­tive, pro­vid­ed project design is con­sis­tent­ly geared towards effi­cien­cy. Ylek­tra sup­ports projects under the new EEG 2027 frame­work from site analy­sis through ten­der prepa­ra­tion to com­mis­sion­ing.

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About Ylektra

Ylek­tra spe­cialis­es in the devel­op­ment and real­i­sa­tion of agri­v­olta­ic projects with bat­tery stor­age across Ger­many. Togeth­er with farms, munic­i­pal­i­ties and investors, we realise dual-use con­cepts that com­bine agri­cul­ture and the ener­gy tran­si­tion.

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Legal notice: This arti­cle is an ini­tial assess­ment by Ylek­tra GmbH of the EEG 2027 bill (sta­tus before the cab­i­net meet­ing on 29 July 2026, con­sul­ta­tion of asso­ci­a­tions in July 2026). It does not replace indi­vid­ual legal advice. Changes in the fur­ther leg­isla­tive process are like­ly; we will update this arti­cle accord­ing­ly.