The German Federal Network Agency BNetzA awarded almost 400MW of onshore wind capacity in the country’s latest auction.
BNetzA said it received 96 bids totalling over 657MW for the 367MW that had been offered, with a total of 58 bids successful.
It was the first time this year that an onshore wind auction had been over-subscribed, the agency said.
The bid range was €55.9 a megawatt-hour (MWh) to €60.7/MWh, with the volume-weighted average value at €59.2/MWh.
BNetzA said the largest volume of bids went to locations in Schleswig-Holstein (31 awards, 153.6MW), North Rhine-Westphalia (11 awards, 89MW) and Lower Saxony (eight awards, 84.9MW).
It added that in this round, the upper limit of the network expansion area was fully exhausted.
Therefore, the bids submitted for the grid expansion area of 286MW exceeded the tendered amount, which was 178.2MW, so that not all admissible bids could be considered.
Three bids had to be excluded from the process due to formal errors.
A solar auction had over 264MW awarded to 45 projects.
A total of more than 936MW consisting of 186 bids was submitted for the 257MW on offer.
Bids were between €48.8/MWh and €52.6/MWh, with the average at €51.0/MWh.
A total of 42 bids were excluded from the process. Sixteen had to be excluded because they were late.
Several exclusions occurred because they significantly exceeded the permitted bid amount, BNetzA said.
The next tender for onshore wind will take place on 1 February and for solar on 1 March.