Germany’s latest onshore wind tender was far less undersubscribed than recent auctions and awarded more than a gigawatt for the first time in four years, pointing to an improvement in the country’s permitting bottleneck that has stifled growth.

Winning bids totaled 1.1GW and reached an average price of €59.10 ($71.68) per megawatt hour, slightly below the last auction, where winning bids matched the €60 price ceiling.

The federal network agency (BNetzA) had tried to auction off 1.24GW, making the latest tender still under-subscribed. But the result was an improvement from previous auctions for wind on land, at which less than half of the volume on offer was tendered off.

“There is a tendency to have more permits than in the past, which is positive,” said Mathias Zelinger, managing director of VDMA Power Systems, a group representing wind turbine manufacturers.

“A significantly higher bid volume was awarded than in the February tender. However, even the previously reduced tender volume was not achieved.

“In order to further strengthen the project pipeline, the measures named by Federal [energy] minister Altmaier to improve the area and permit situation must continue to be implemented quickly."

Germany’s wind industry federation BWE stressed that for the first time since 2017, more than 1GW of onshore wind capacity was auctioned off, but added that both Germany’s state and federal governments need to do more to ensure tendering volumes can be fully used.

“The focus is not only on the next tender on September 1, but also on the coming year,” BWE president Hermann Albers said.

“Then, additional quantities will be tendered that urgently need to be filled in order to achieve the climate and energy transition targets.”

Germany recently has moved forward its net-zero climate target to 2045, but the government so far hasn’t done enough to speed up the expansion of wind and solar power sufficiently to actually achieve that goal.

Wind

German wind tender breaks 1GW for first time in years as permits start to flow