The German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has awarded contracts to 1,441MW of onshore wind and 195MW of solar capacity in its latest tender round.
A total of 119 bids for onshore wind projects were awarded from 126 that were submitted, while 87 bids for solar developments were also given the green light from 94 that were put forward.
The highest number of awards for onshore wind were located in North Rhine-Westphalia, where 40 projects totalling 387MW were successful, and in Lower Saxony, where 16 awards for 354MW capacity were approved.
These included three existing RWE-owned projects in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, which have their capacities almost doubled with the installation larger turbines.
A total of 17 wind turbines at two projects in Lesse and Barbecke with a combined total output of 30.6MW will be replaced by 11 turbines with a total capacity of 61.8MW.
Meanwhile, the capacity of it’s Elisenhof wind farm in the Paderborn district will be increased from 6.75MW to 11.4MW.
The bid values of the accepted onshore winds bids ranged between 7.24 ct/kWh and 7.35 ct/kWh, with 7.34 ct/kWh being the volume-weighted average.
Elsewhere, the surcharge values for solar projects were between 9.00 ct/kWh and 11.25 ct/kWh.
The volume-weighted average value for solar was 10.87 ct/kWh.
Solar projects in 13 federal states were awarded contracts, including 16 bids that were awarded in North Rhine-Westphalia followed by 11 in Brandenburg, 9 in Baden-Württemberg and 8 in both Bavaria and Lower Saxony.
BNetzA said that it raised this year’s total tender volume for onshore wind turbines from 5,332MW in 2022 to 12,840MW in 2023 with, 3,210MW of capacity allowed to be awarded for each onshore wind tender round this year.
BNetzA president Klaus Müller said: “Raising the maximums was important. However, we must continue to work on expanding the suitable and priority areas and speeding up the approvals in order to achieve the urgently needed expansion.”
RWE chief executive officer of onshore wind and solar in Europe & Australia Katja Wünschel said: “For the energy transition to succeed, Germany needs new wind and solar farms up and running quickly and must also focus on modernising older sites.
“On average, modern turbines produce two to three times more electricity with fewer turbines. This shows the potential of repowering.
“RWE is therefore naturally involved: both in new construction and in the modernisation of older wind turbines.”