Solar rooftop projects totalling 264MW have been chosen in a competitive auction run by the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur.
The auction, Germany’s first tender for rooftop solar this year, was oversubscribed, with 194 bids totalling 378MW of capacity competing for the 263MW available.
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In total, 125 bids were successful, with these prices ranging from €0.069-0.095 (US$0.075-0.1)/kWh. These prices were lower, relatively, than the prices arranged for other solar auctions in Germany, with the volume-weighted average price of the successful rooftop bids reaching €0.089 (US$0.097)/kWh, compared to €0.096 (US$0.1)/kWh previously. This average price was also €0.015 (US$0.016) lower than the price ceiling. The Bundesnetzagentur said it disqualified nine bids for what it called “formal errors”.
The successful bids were also distributed fairly evenly across Germany, with successful projects in 14 states. Lower Saxony had the most winning projects, with 27 projects with a combined capacity of 58MW; ahead of North Rhine-Westphalia, with 23 projects with 45MW of capacity; and Bavaria, with 13 projects with 27MW of capacity.
Targeting rooftop solar in particular
The auction marks the first in a series of rooftop-specific initiatives in Germany, with the government planning to conduct another two auctions this year. In total around 900MW of rooftop capacity will be up open for bids over the three rounds.
The news follows Germany’s launch of an auction for ground-mounted PV capacity, which saw bids made for 5.5GW of capacity, when the Bundesnetzagentur sought just 1.6GW of capacity. In total, 547 bids were submitted for the ground-mounted auction, a record figure, as Germany looks to dramatically expand its solar sector. Between 2019 and 2023, the government increased its target for installed solar capacity by 2030 from 98GW to a mammoth 215GW, more than double that of any other EU country, and a target that would significantly alter the German power mix if reached.
Last year, Germany added 14.1GW of new solar capacity, exceeding its target of adding 9GW of capacity, and solar met 12% of the country’s total energy demand, according to German solar association Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW).
In positive news for the German renewables sector more broadly, the Bundesnetzagentur praised the “encouraging signs” in its latest onshore wind auction, completed at the same time as the rooftop solar auction, which saw 6.5GW of capacity awarded.
“We are still seeing a positive trend, with the onshore wind auctions continuing to show encouraging signs. We are not quite where we want to be to achieve our expansion targets for wind capacity, but we are making good progress,” said Klaus Müller, president of the Bundesnetzagentur. “We have even seen a slight increase in the volumes bid for in the auctions for rooftop solar installations.”