In the first solar power auction results coming from Germany for 2017, awarded solar power tariffs have fallen to a new low of 6.00 euro cents per kWh. The average awarded price bids was at 6.58 euro cents per kWh, the highest awarded tariff was at 6.75 euro cents.
In this tender, 200 MW capacity was offered, for which a total of 97 bids came in, with a volume of 488 MW. Finally, the Federal Network Agency of Germany awarded 200 MW to 38 bids. Successful bidders in this round will now be required to submit their financial statements by February 27, 2017.
The previous PV auction, for which results were announced in December 2016, gave away 163 MW of PV capacity. For that tender, the average tariff was 6.91 euro cents per kWh, the lowest winning bid was 6.26 euro cents.
So far all German solar tenders organized by the Federal Network Agency since August 2015 have been oversubscribed. The highest was in August 2015 when the capacity offered was only 150 MW, but the enthusiastic response saw 715 MW being offered by developers. The trend is likely to continue in the times to come. As of the start of 2017, the new Renewable Energy Act (EEG) is in effect, which stipulates that all capacity above 750 kW needs to be tendered. Until the end of last year, systems up to 10 MW could be installed outside the auctions and received regular feed-in tariffs.