The German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA) has kicked off the next solar PV auction round, offering 182 MW of solar capacity by 1 June 2018. The maximum bidding price has been set at €8.84c/kWh. The annual quotas for Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria have not been exhausted yet and surcharge for up to 96.5 MW and 20 MW, respectively, are available.
The last tender took place in October 2017 and the BNetzA received 110 bids with a total volume of 754 MW with an average bid size of 6.9 MW. Only 20 bids won the round and a total capacity of 222 MW were awarded. The maximum bidding price during this tender was also set at €8.84c/kWh. The average bidding rate reached €4.91c/kWh (€49.1/MWh), with the highest bid achieving €5.06c/kWh and the lowest one €4.29c/kWh. Three out of the 20 successful bids obtained a volume higher than 20 MW.
Since the beginning of 2017, solar and wind power projects bigger than 750 kW have to compete in tenders in order to secure power purchase deals, as feed-in tariff (FiT) contracts are no longer available.