Germany's first onshore wind tender awards 807 MW

The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagetur) has announced that it has accepted a total of 70 successful bids for the development of onshore wind energy projects totalling 807 MW.

 A total of 256 bids with a volume of 2,137 MW had been submitted. The average bid amount was 5.71 ct/kWh and the highest bid accepted for outside the network expansion area was 5.78 ct/kWh, which includes Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Bremen and Hamburg, and the northern part of Lower Saxony. The highest bid price that could be accepted within the network expansion area was 5.58 ct/kWh.

With 71% of all bids submitted the citizens' energy companies showed a strong presence in this first round of auctions. Consequently, 93% of the bids (65) or 96% of the volume of bids were awarded to citizens' energy companies. 

Bids can only be accepted up to a set limit of 258 MW in the network expansion area and this limit was reached. Therefore some bids could not be considered. A lottery had to be held for four bid awards which were at the network expansion limit.

According to sources, Germany had about 50 GW of installed wind power capacity at the end of 2016. Further calls for onshore wind are planned for August and November.