Energy minister Sigmar Gabriel originally had planned 600MW in annual PV tenders, which are meant to be a trial run for auctions to be extended to other renewable energy technologies from 2017 onwards.
The tenders are being held partly to meet guidelines from the European Commission, which views Germany's feed-in tariff (FIT) system for RE support with suspicious eyes.
But protests by agricultural lobby groups that have a strong backing in the Christian Social Union (CSU), one of the coalition parties of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government in Berlin, and by sceptical renewable energy groups prompted Gabriel to limit his tender ambitions somewhat.
