Germanys Federal Network Agency has launched the countrys third round of pilot tenders for solar PV ground-mounted systems. Unlike the first two auctions, which called for 150 MW, this time tenders totaling 200 MW have been announced. A uniform pricing model for the sale of the generated solar energy will again be applied.
"After the first two rounds have already successfully run and, in the second round, a significantly lower price for successful bids were seen compared with the first, it will be interesting to see if this trend remains," Peter Franke, VP of the Federal Network Agency. He added that the agency will observe the increased volume of tenders.
In each of the first two auctions this year, tenders totaling 150 MW were called for. In both instances, they were massively oversubscribed. In the first round, the agency tested a pay-as-bid model, where the project developers were each compensated for the solar power they produced at the price listed in their bids.
With the uniform pricing method, which sees developers receive a price based on the last successful bid and was introduced in the second round, criticism has been aimed at the fact bidders are gambling with unrealistic prices: the lowest bid in the second round was around 0.01/kWh. But even with this bid, the developer received a unit price of 0.849/kWh.
In the third round, the maximum price for bids is 0.1109/kWh. Bidders unsuccessful in previous rounds, may participate in the new auction. Following a high number of exclusions in the first rounds, due to wrongly-filled out paperwork, the Federal Network Agency has published notes on its website to help prospective bidders.
Translated and edited by Becky Beetz
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