Onshore wind, bioenergy in Germany expand slowly amid undersubscribed tenders

The roll-out of onshore wind energy, biomass and biomethane in Germany remains sluggish despite the government's ambitious targets and recent legal amendments with the latest auctions for the three technologies being vastly undersubscribed.

The Federal Network Agency tendered almost 1,320 MW of onshore wind capacity in an auction with a deadline of September 1 but received 87 proposals with a total capacity of about 772 MW. All bids were successful.

The regulator noted that the weak interest in the tender was not expected considering the permits reported to the market data register.

Bids in the tender ranged from EUR 0.0576 per kWh to EUR 0.0588 per kWh. The volume-weighted average award price achieved was EUR 0.0584 (USD 0.057) per kWh, almost at the level of the previous round of EUR 0.0585 per kWh.

The most projects with a combined capacity of 208 MW came from Lower Saxony, followed by Schleswig-Holstein with 179 MW and North Rhine-Westphalia with 127 MW.

The previous round of the onshore wind tender in June was also undersubscribed and allocated 931 MW of capacity.

In the biomass tender with a September 1 deadline, the Federal Network Agency awarded 69 projects with a total capacity of 78 MW. The targeted capacity was 286 MW but only 100 offers totalling 101 MW were submitted. Of these, 11 were excluded from the competition due to formal errors.

Prices in the auction were in the range of EUR 0.142 per kWh to EUR 0.179 per kWh.

Germany's second round of the auction for biomethane-powered plants with a deadline of October 1 attracted the least interest. Only two projects of a combined 3.5 MW were submitted while the targeted volume was 152 MW. Both bids come from Baden-Wuerttemberg and were accepted. The tender was open only to projects that had been approved.

In the first round in January, the Federal Network Agency awarded 148 MW of capacity.

(EUR 1 = USD 0.972)

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