German Renewable Energy Tariff Register

The TariffRegister compiles all tariff types paid to renewable energy units in Germany under the RES Act 2000 and its subsequent amendments. This dataset is based on the tariff files reported by the four German Transmission System Operators (TSOs) on their conjoint reporting webpage.  It includes over 6500 different tariff types applicable from 2000 to 2023. The file consists of 19 descriptors, the tariff identification code (Tariff_ID), publication year, associated technology, commissioning year of applicable units, unit characterization criteria (Criteria1 and Criteria2), bonus details (Bonus_name and Bonus_start), fuel type (Fuel), tariff values (Tariff), management premium, "Ausfallvergütung" value, “Mieterstromzuschlag”, and date of tariff introduction or change. Additionally, two tariff categorization levels (Category1 and Category2) group tariffs into 29 and 17 respective categories, while the KWK descriptor indicates CHP-biomass plant subsidies and the "Sign" descriptor signifies positive or negative tariffs.

Notes:

The TariffRegister.csv can be matched with the PaymentRegister dataset to identify the payment types received by renewable energy units.

The provided categorization process reflects the specific research needs of the Chair of Energy Economics at BTU and does not affect the original data, allowing users to choose whether to utilize the categorization descriptors.

Users can update the dataset by following the outlined steps:

Update the “Original files” by downloading the latest published data (here)

Clean the files from any row that is not including a Tariff_ID

Include the categorization descriptors by matching the categories based on the Tariff_ID and update the categories for new tariffs.

Paste this information into a CSV file and store it under “Cleaned files” and check that the column names and data types match the information from previous files.

Run the provided R code after modifying the top-level directory.

This publication is part of a series of datasets on German Renewable Energy Sources Data, which also includes a UnitRegister, a PaymentRegister, and the combination of this information to analyze individual bids in renewable auctions. For a comprehensive understanding of the datasets and their relationships, we recommend referring to two related publications:

Batz Liñeiro, T. B., Müsgens, F. (2023). "Evaluating the German onshore wind auction programme: An analysis based on individual bids." Energy Policy, 172, 113317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113317 | Preprint

Batz Liñeiro, T., Müsgens, F. (2021). "Evaluating the German PV auction program: The secrets of individual bids revealed." Energy Policy, 159, 112618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112618 | Preprint