But the reality is a little different. The energy policy of Germany’s largest state could be more accurately described as a showcase for double standards and deceit. And its actions could derail the country’s Energiewende, its transition from nuclear to renewables.

To start with, Bavaria has, by German standards, not exactly embraced wind. While an impressive 12% of its electricity in 2014 came from solar, only 2% came from wind, and another 19% from hydro, biomass and other renewables. But the state still derives almost half of its electricity from nuclear and the remainder from fossil fuel.

The state government’s “energy concept”, written in 2011 but still official policy, says that to reach its 50% target, Bavaria needs to boost solar power from a current 11GW to 14GW in 2021, while 1,000-1,500 new wind turbines need to be built to reach a wind share of 6-10% in 2021. It also calls for increased use of biomass and hydro.

But while it looks impressive on paper, it will be virtually impossible to put into practice unless the state drastically changes its contradictory and self-defeating energy policies. Last year’s reform to the national Renewable Energies Act (EEG) will make meeting the target even harder.

The EEG reform capped new solar installations at 2.4-2.6GW a year across Germany and maintained the automatic quarterly degression in feed-in tariffs, which led to the dramatic slowdown in PV installations last year, to just 1.9GW.

The new national PV tenders are simply not big enough to substantially boost overall installation figures. On top of that, a levy on self-consumption of solar energy, also introduced last year, and previously existing constraints on new ground-mounted PV arrays in agricultural areas will further reduce new solar installations in Bavaria.

The state’s controlling party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) — the sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — had initially been very vocal in opposing the restrictions on solar. But it ended up backing the EEG reforms both in government, where it is part of Merkel’s coalition, and in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament containing representatives of the 16 state governments.

Hans-Josef Fell, a former Green Party federal member of parliament for Bavaria, who was one of the main authors of the original EEG, accuses the CSU of double standards.

“The Bavarian state government criticises decisions that its own people [from the CSU] sign off in Berlin. That’s more than populism, it’s deceiving citizens. The state government could have tried to impede it in the Bundesrat.”

Bavaria’s current policy on wind power is even more counter-productive.

Due to the huge state’s low and medium wind speeds, Bavaria has always been something of a wind-power laggard. But recent advances in turbine technology — higher towers and larger rotors — now allow such winds to be efficiently harvested. This helped Bavaria claw itself up to fifth position for new installations in 2014, with 412MW added (up from 253MW in 2013), bringing its cumulative capacity to 1.5GW.

Last year, Bavaria supported the 2.4-2.6GW annual cap on wind power legislated for in the EEG reform. It also created a new state rule that could be a death blow to the state’s fledgling wind industry.

The “10H rule”, which was passed in November by the CSU majority in the Bavarian parliament, ensures a minimum distance of ten times the turbine height between a wind park and the nearest settlement.

With turbine heights of 200 metres common in its low-wind regions, this would mean a minimum distance of 2km — a big ask in the densely populated state.

In the first quarter of 2015, requests for only 19 new wind turbines were made, making the target of up to 1,500 new turbines by 2021 highly unlikely.

“Since the discussion about the 10H rule, the planning of new wind-power locations has come to a standstill across the state,” says Gisela Wendling-Lenz, founder of local developer Ostwind — which has developed 100MW of wind in Bavaria, with another 100MW to be completed this year and next (having been approved before 10H kicked in).

“A medium-sized family business like ours needs continuity and reliable framework conditions in energy policy. Both are currently lacking in Bavaria.”

As a consequence, Ostwind has halted its expansion in the state and instead is planning a rapid increase of staff and projects in northern Germany.

The 10H rule has also put on hold 90% of all wind projects being developed by Bayernwind, a subsidiary of pro-renewables Munich utility Stadtwerke München (SWM).

“We have several hundred megawatts of wind power in various stages of planning, but at the moment, they can’t be pursued further,” Christian Vogt, head of corporate investment management at SWM, tells Recharge. “We now have the technology to exploit wind locations in Bavaria economically. It makes economic sense to build onshore here.”

Fell and the Pro Windkraft lobby group have initiated a class action against the 10H rule in the Bavarian constitutional court, hoping that it will be overturned.

Vogt points out that an energy supply gap is looming, as the Energiewende requires all nuclear power to be phased out by 2022.

To cope with this, the Bavarian government agreed in 2013 to the construction of at least three so-called transmission super-highways to transport electricity south from the growing number of onshore and offshore and wind projects in the north. At the time of its approval, Bavaria argued that these lines were “essential”.

But against a background of continuous not-in-my-backyard protests across Bavaria, state premier and CSU chairman Horst Seehofer has blocked construction of these power lines, particularly the 800km SüdLink high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) project planned by transmission system operators (TSOs) TenneT and TransnetBW.

In principle, the power lines could be built despite his resistance. But that would mean Merkel risking a split between her party and the CSU, which have together ruled most post-war German governments. However, German media report that the patience of Merkel and Social Democrat energy minister Sigmar Gabriel is wearing thin.

The TSOs have warned that the delay could force southern Germany to increase imports of fossil-fuel-fired energy from neighbouring countries such as Austria, and divide northern and southern Germany into two different electricity pricing zones, with southern consumers paying more.

“An interstate electricity exchange with new transmission lines will only occur if it is doubtlessly necessary for Bavaria’s supply,” Bavarian energy minister Ilse Aigner tells Recharge. “If a grid expansion should be necessary, it needs to be as friendly to citizens, the landscape and nature as possible.”

In mid-May, Aigner suggested that SüdLink should skirt around Bavaria and instead be built through the neighbouring states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg, only entering Bavaria at the end of the line to spare as much of the latter’s beautiful terrain as possible.

Needless to say, Bavaria’s neighbours reacted furiously. Baden-Württemberg already has to stomach two other new transmission lines. A possible solution would be to build large parts of the HVDC lines underground, but that would be up to eight times more expensive.

With the 1.3GW Grafenrheinfeld atomic power station in northern Bavaria due to be switched off in June and three further nuclear plants set to be closed in the state by 2022, Aigner and her government have been lobbying for new gas-fired power plants to compensate for the lost capacity.

“For me, the essence of the Energiewende is that nuclear energy will be replaced by renewable energies and highly efficient gas power stations, not by dirty coal power,” Aigner tells Recharge.

Energy experts say that Aigner’s new love for gas makes little sense at a time when Europe is trying to free itself from dependence on Russian energy, and when gas-fired power can no longer compete with renewables on wholesale electricity markets. Utility giant E.ON recently asked to mothball two blocks of its modern gas plant in Irsching, Bavaria, as a consequence.

Fell and many in the renewables industry believe that Bavaria and the CSU, which has a very pro-nuclear history, have a hidden agenda — to limit new renewables capacity and transmission lines in order to demand an extension of nuclear power, once it becomes clear that the nuclear phase-out may endanger the energy supply in southern Germany.

If Merkel wants to ensure that Bavaria sticks to its previous renewables commitments and stops endangering the Energiewende, she may have to make some tough choices to bring her CSU partners into line.