Awarded onshore wind contracts jump to 2.4 GW in Germany's latest tender
Clean Energy Wire
Germany has awarded the most onshore wind contracts ever following the latest round of tenders by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA). "The current round of tenders represents a record with almost 2.5 gigawatts [GW] of bids submitted and confirms the trend of increasing bid and approval numbers," said agency president Klaus Müller. "If this positive development continues, the expansion targets for onshore wind can be achieved."
The BNetzA tendered a volume of 2.7 GW and received 197 submitted bids with a volume of 2.4 GW. “There have not been similar volumes since the bidding rounds in 2017,” before the shift to auctions took place, it said. The BNetzA went on to award 189 bids with a total volume of 2.3 GW after excluding eight bids from the process. The submitted bid volume almost reached the 2.5 GW target volume specified in Germany’s Renewable Energy Act. It was nevertheless significantly below the 4.1 GW of unallocated tender volume that resulted from unexhausted tenders last year. This unallocated volume will be offered in this year's tenders. Winning bid prices in the onshore wind tenders ranged between 7.20 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and 7.35 ct/kWh, with the average volume-weighted award value at 7.33 ct/kWh.
The regional distribution was similar to the previous tender rounds, with the largest volumes of contracts awarded in North Rhine-Westphalia (68 contracts for a total 727 MW), Lower Saxony (26 contracts for 430 MW), and Schleswig-Holstein (17 contracts for 318 MW). The next onshore wind tender is scheduled for 1 August. Wind power is projected to become the backbone of the country’s entire energy system in the shift away from fossil fuels. Germany aims to roughly double its onshore wind capacity to 115 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.
