German solar tender awards 2.1 GW, prices fall further

Germany’s Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has selected 268 projects for ground-mounted solar parks with a combined capacity of 2,152 MW in the latest tender round which saw the average price decline further.

The auction with a July 1 deadline was significantly oversubscribed, drawing 495 bids totalling 4,206 MW, the Federal Network Agency announced on Friday. However, 63 projects were disqualified from the competition.

The average volume-weighted award price in this round was EUR 0.0505 (USD 0.056) per kWh, reflecting a decline from EUR 0.0511 per kWh and EUR 0.0517 per kWh in the previous two tenders. Overall, the prices ranged between EUR 0.045/kWh and EUR 0.0524/kWh.

With some changes introduced by the Solar Package I now in effect, bids for arable and grassland areas with limited agricultural use could be considered in this round across all federal states. Nearly half of the awards -- 123 projects totalling 1,037 MW -- were allocated to such areas.

However, the regulations raising the upper limit for single projects from the current 20 MW to 50 MW and setting a higher price cap for special solar projects such as agrivoltaics and moor-PV, were not applied in this bidding round, as they are still pending approval under state aid law.

As expected, the majority of the winning projects --700 MW across 118 projects -- were located in Bavaria, followed by Schleswig-Holstein with 22 awards totalling 244 MW, and Brandenburg with 20 projects amounting to 231 MW.

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