Prices again hovered around the maximum allowed in yet another undersubscribed German onshore wind tendering round, while prices in an oversubscribed solar auction rose slightly.
Bids totaling a mere 468MW were handed in despite an auctioning volume of 826MW, and successful bids added up to 464MW in the latest auction for wind on land, Germany’s federal grids agency (BNetzA) said.
The average price for successful bids came in at €61.40 ($69.21) per megawatt hour, an uptick from the average of €60.70/MWh in the previous auction.
Prices have been close to the maximum allowed price of €62.00/MWh for many tendering rounds, a sign that the auctions haven’t been succeeding in bringing prices down for wind energy in Germany for a long time.
Had the country stayed with its support system of state-set feed-in tariffs that slide down over time, which was swapped for supposedly competitive tenders in 2017, Germany would already have much lower prices for wind energy.
“The lull in wind energy continues. Not even half of the volume on offer could even be successful,” said Julia Verlinden, energy policy spokeswoman at the opposition Green Party in parliament.
Most German onshore wind auctions this year and last have been heavily undersubscribed amid an ongoing permitting malaise, which the government so far has not addressed properly.
A simultaneous tender for 96MW in solar capacity was oversubscribed, with averages prices rising slightly to €52.70/MWh from €51.80/MWh in the previous round.
Verlinden said German policies in solar came down to a ban on investments as the volume allowed in the latest round was almost a fifth of the volume bid.
“With its slow-down policy the government won’t even reach its own [renewables] expansion target, let alone an expansion path for renewable energy that would be needed for climate protection and the coal exit.”
