Results of the auction for solar farms that ended on 1 December 2023
Year of issue 2024
Date of issue 2024.01.31
The Bundesnetzagentur has today announced the successful bids in the auction that ended on 1 December 2023 for ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and for first-segment solar installations (installations on, affixed to or in a construction that is neither a building nor a noise barrier).
"Yet another record was set in the latest auction round: never before was participation so strong in an auction for solar farms. The auction was nearly three times oversubscribed, with a volume of 5.48 gigawatts (GW) bid for the auction volume of 1.61 GW. Competition led to low winning bids,"
said Klaus Müller, President of the Bundesnetzagentur.
First-segment solar auction (ground-mounted solar PV systems)
The auction for first-segment solar installations that ended on 1 December 2023 was very significantly oversubscribed. There were 574 bids with a total volume of 5,485 megawatts (MW) in the auction for a volume of 1,611 MW. This auction thus had the most bids and the largest bid volume ever for this technology. In this round, individual bids exceeding 20 MW accounted for 1,986 MW. These bids could be submitted for the last time in this auction due to the discontinuation of an exceptional arrangement.
There were 124 successful bids with a combined volume of 1,613 MW.
The prices of the successful bids in the pay-as-bid auction ranged from 4.44 cents per kilowatt hour (ct/kWh) to 5.47 ct/kWh; these prices were significantly lower than those in the previous round (between 5.39 ct/kWh and 6.65 ct/kWh) and the highest permissible price in this round of 7.37 ct/kWh. The average volume-weighted award price in this round was 5.17 ct/kWh, which was 1.3 cents below that of the previous round (6.47 ct/kWh).
A total of 43 bids had to be excluded from the auction due to formal errors. Because of the high number of bids submitted, this was just under 7.5% of all the bids submitted.
Distribution of the bids
From a regional perspective the federal state with by far the most volume awarded was, as in the previous round, Bavaria (604 MW, 63 winning bids), followed by Brandenburg (197 MW, 9 winning bids) and Saxony-Anhalt (167 MW, 11 winning bids).
There were 19 successful bids where each bid had a volume of more than 20 MW. The largest successful bid had a volume of 74 MW.
Divided into categories, most successful bids went to projects that are planned alongside motorways and railway lines (55 winning bids for a total of 828 MW). The category with the second largest volume of winning bids in this round was farmland or grassland, with 47 winning bids for a total of 530 MW.
There were 10 successful bids in the agriculture PV system category (where the land is also being used for agricultural purposes). Two successful bids for a total of 38 MW were awarded to projects where moorland that had been drained will now be rewet at the site of solar installations.
Next steps
Information on the next steps concerning the auction for first-segment solar installations that ended on 1 December 2023 is available on the Bundesnetzagentur's website at www.bundesnetzagentur.de/solarausschreibungen23-3.
The updated bidding round statistics will be published shortly.
The next auction for first-segment solar installations will close for bids on 1 March 2024 www.bundesnetzagentur.de/solarausschreibungen24-1