Bundesnetzagentur Awards Over 2 GW Ground Mounted Capacity

• Bundesnetzagentur has awarded over 2.23 GW of ground-mounted PV capacity in its latest auction round 
• Most of this capacity will be installed alongside motorways or railways and arable or grassland regions 
• The tender round was oversubscribed as the agency received bids totaling 4.1 GW 

The March 1, 2024 German ground-mounted solar PV tender round of Bundesnetzagentur was oversubscribed with 569 bids representing 4,100 MW capacity, against the 2,231 MW offered. It eventually picked 326 bids for a total volume of 2.234 GW. 

This capacity is an improvement over the 1.611 GW offered in the previous round which was also oversubscribed (see German Ground Mounted Solar Tender Massively Oversubscribed). 

The agency's President Klaus Müller said, "The tender continues to be characterized by a very high level of participation. For four rounds, the amount of bids received has significantly exceeded the volume advertised. Despite the increased tender volumes, there is stable competition in this segment." 

The weighted average winning bid was determined as €0.0511 ($0.055)/kWh, coming in at the same level as the last round's €0.0517/kWh. The lowest and highest winning bids during the round were €0.0362 ($0.039)/kWh and €0.0549 ($0.059)/kWh, respectively. 

These are much lower than the ceiling tariff of €0.0737 ($0.080)/kWh for ground-mounted PV for 2024 auctions. 

Schleswig-Holstein secured the largest chunk of winning capacity with 221 MW, 806 MW in Bavaria and 199 MW in Lower Saxony.  

A total of 1.058 GW of this capacity will be installed alongside motorways or railways. Another 792 MW will be installed on arable or grassland areas in disadvantaged regions since these have limited agricultural use. 

The next bidding round for this category is scheduled for July 1, 2024.