Thousands of workers from Germany's renewable energy sector and environmental activists demonstrated outside parliament in Berlin against the conservative-led government's plans to cut subsidies for the industry.
Employees from companies in the wind, solar and biogas sectors, along with the environmental activists, gathered on Friday to put pressure on lawmakers.
MPs are looking at proposals by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche that include axing subsidies for smaller solar installations, and that would make it less financially attractive to build renewable sites in some areas.
Several thousand demonstrators took part in the protest, according to AFP journalists, waving banners that read "wind energy, powerful and strong" and "good energy, good jobs".
The renewables sector boomed under the previous government when the economy ministry was headed by the Greens party. Priorities have now shifted to rebuilding the military and boosting the economy after years of stagnation.
"What we launched as a success story is now being dismantled for completely inexplicable reasons," Felix Rubitschek, an executive at WestfalenWind, which develops wind projects, told AFP.
Reiche, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right CDU party, has defended the proposals, saying that green energy subsidies cost billions of dollars a year.
But she has also faced criticism for plans to build new gas-fired power stations, which she says are needed to control energy costs.
Experts have also voiced fears that the government is not on track to meet goals to reduce carbon emissions.
