Community wind farms make their mark in German auction

26 May 2017


Sian Crampsie

Strong competition in Germany’s first auction for onshore wind energy has helped yield a low price for the technology.

Germany’s Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, said that the auction was oversubscribed, and that the average price of the accepted bids was €57.1/MWh.

The auction was the first held by Germany under its reformed EEG renewable energy law, and awarded 807 MW of capacity. Of the 70 successful bids, 65 came from community projects.

The results were announced two days after a renewable energy auction in Spain, which awarded 3 GW of capacity, nearly all of it onshore wind energy.

Germany’s auction received 256 bids with a volume of 2137 MW. The prevalence of community projects in the tender illustrates the importance of public engagement in the energy transition, WindEurope said.

“Germany set an example of how EU Member States should manage the transition towards competitive auctions,” said Giles Dickson, WindEurope CEO. “Technology-specific tenders providing revenue stabilisation are best suited to deploy wind energy cost effectively. A clear schedule and deployment volumes as outlined by the German EEG are also crucial to investment decisions.”

Winning bidders in Germany’s auction are guaranteed the price for 20 years. Spain’s system offers less revenue stability, according to WindEurope.

Giles Dickson added: “This is the year where auctioning becomes the norm for onshore wind in Europe. The cost reduction trend that we’ve seen in offshore tenders since mid-2016 has been reinforced in the first two big onshore tenders this year – Germany and Spain.”
 



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