Germany launches 260MW rooftop solar PV tender

This year’s first rooftop solar auction ended up oversubscribed with 378MW of capacity submitted for 264MW awarded. This auction had a similar fate to the ground-mounted solar auction in January, which ended up being 3.5 times oversubscribed with 5.5GW of bidding capacity submitted for 1.61GW of solar PV awarded.

A previous tender for solar installations on buildings and noise barriers also ended up oversubscribed in November 2023, which awarded 191MW of solar PV capacity.

A third rooftop solar auction is to be held later this year, with a total of 900MW of solar PV capacity to be auctioned throughout 2024 for rooftop solar.

As interest in German auctions continues to rise, the country continues to grow its installed solar capacity. Last year, Germany added 14GW of PV capacity, with residential representing nearly half of all capacity installed. The country nearly doubled its installed capacity from the previous year, which also meant Germany reclaimed the first spot in Europe after losing it against Spain in 2022. Overall, Europe added a record 56GW of PV capacity in 2023, according to data from trade association SolarPower Europe.

With solar PV in upward growth in Germany and with a target of reaching 215GW of installed capacity by 2030, the government recently agreed on the terms of Solarpaket I – Solar Package I – which aims to further boost solar’s installed capacity in the coming years. Among the proposed new regulations is the increase in the bidding capacity for ground-mounted auctions, going from 20MW to 50MW and the feed-in tariff for commercial PV rooftop systems, with a capacity of between 40-750kW, to be increased by €0.015.

For more details regarding the auction and the bidding process, you can access the Federal Network Agency’s page here (in German).