Healthy competition and oversubscribed bid volumes in February auctions for onshore wind, solar installations on buildings and noise barriers
Year of issue 2025
Date of issue 2025.03.25
The Bundesnetzagentur has today published the results of the auctions for onshore wind, solar installations on buildings and noise barriers that closed on 1 February 2025.
"Fortunately the trend towards oversubscribed auctions is also continuing in the wind energy sector. Competition makes it possible for low bids to be successful. This is very good news for the expansion of renewable energy,"
commented Klaus Müller.
Auction for onshore wind plants
The auction was for a volume of 4,094 megawatts (MW). A total of 506 bids with a volume of 4,896 MW were submitted. The auction was thus oversubscribed and resulted in 422 bids with a total volume of 4,094 MW being awarded. There were six bids that had to be excluded from the award procedure.
The Bundesnetzagentur had not reduced the auction volume before the auction as it had done in the previous auction round in November 2024 because the high number of newly registered approvals suggested that the auction would be oversubscribed.
The prices of the successful bids in the pay-as-bid auction ranged from 5.62 cents per kilowatt hour (ct/kWh) to 7.13 ct/kWh. The average volume-weighted award price fell from 7.15 ct/kWh in the previous round to 7.00 ct/kWh.
The federal state with by far the most volume awarded was North Rhine-Westphalia (1,266 MW, 145 winning bids), followed by Lower Saxony (475 MW, 49 winning bids), Brandenburg (443 MW, 43 winning bids) and Saxony-Anhalt (334 MW, 34 winning bids).
Auction for solar installations on buildings and noise barriers
Competition was at a similar level as in the previous round and the auction was 1.2 times oversubscribed.
There were 169 bids submitted for a tendered volume of 315 MW. The bid volume totalled 369 MW. The Bundesnetzagentur received 143 bids that were successful comprising a total volume of 317 MW.
The prices of the successful bids in the pay-as-bid auction ranged from 7.90 ct/kWh to 9.69 ct/kWh. The volume-weighted average price of the successful bids was 9.10 ct/kWh (9.04 ct/kWh in the previous round). The highest price was significantly higher at 10.40 ct/kWh.
The awards were again spread evenly throughout the country. Most successful bids went to projects in North Rhine-Westphalia (78 MW, 29 winning bids), followed by Lower Saxony (49 MW, 20 winning bids), Saxony-Anhalt (35 MW, 16 winning bids) and Bavaria (33 MW, 18 winning bids).
Bids were allowed for a volume higher than 1 MW and up to 20 MW. There were 88 successful bids with a volume of up to 2 MW. The largest bid had a volume of 12 MW.
The Bundesnetzagentur had to disqualify 17 bids.
Further information
Further information about the auction is available on the Bundesnetzagentur’s website (in German) at www.bundesnetzagentur.de/1042968 and www.bundesnetzagentur.de/1042980.
Updated statistics will be published in due course.
The next onshore wind auction will close for bids on 1 May 2025.
The next auction for solar installations on buildings and noise barriers will close for bids on 1 June 2025.