Lack of interest in German PV and wind tenders 'painful aftermath' of energy crisis - industry
Clean Energy Wire
Germany's first parallel tenders for solar and onshore wind power this year have once again drawn little investor interest. The auctions for both technologies were undersubscribed, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said. Expanding the available construction areas for windpower remained key “to achieve the urgently needed buildout,” BNetzA head Klaus Müller commented. In a 3.2 gigawatts (GW) wind tender, bidders submitted projects with a total capacity of only 1.5 GW. The total auction volume for onshore wind this year has been increased to a record of more than 12 GW. After BNetzA increased the maximum guaranteed remuneration in this auction, the average support level of successful bids was 7.34 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).
The lack of investor interest was a “painful aftermath” of last year’s supply chain problems, as well as higher interest rates and resource prices, according to the German Wind Power Federation (BWE). “This undersubscription is a symptom of the insecurity we saw last year,” BWE head Hermann Albers argued. The wind power lobbyist added that the auctioned capacity exceeded the available licenses in Germany’s states, which meant it was impossible to fill the entire tender volume. The much smaller parallel auction for solar power on buildings and roadside noise barriers was only slightly undersubscribed, with the BNetzA awarding projects with a capacity of 195 megawatts (MW) in the 217 MW auction. The average guaranteed remuneration was 10.8 ct/kWh.
The country’s ambitious renewable power targets require a massive ramp-up of expansion rates in the next years. The government has considered providing renewable power producers with purchase guarantees to ensure new installations are built. The states are required to table proposals for how they want to make sufficient construction areas available to meet the required expansion rates.
