Germany To Continue Cross-Border Auctions

• Germany to offer 300 MW in cross-border auction
• It will be open to wind and solar power
• Developers from other EU member states would be able to participate in the tender, though no specifics and timeline available
• Last year, Germany ran a pilot cross-border PV tender that was only open to one foreign EU country - Denmark
• German Bundestag passed wind-solar 400 MW auction pilot to start in Germany in 2018

Germany will put up 300 MW capacity to be auctioned in further cross-border auctions. This would allow developers from others EU members states to participate in the auction. The first cross-border auction took place in 2016 and was limited to PV and Denmark. Now, the 300 MW capacity will be open to PV and wind power technology.

The "technology-neutral" cross-border tenders, recently passed by the Germany Bundestag, is in accordance with a directive of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition (DG-COMP), which stipulates Germany to open up its doors to 5% of new renewable energy capacity installed for developers from the EU. This would mean 300 MW per year. This tender was a requirement for Germany to get the green light from Brussels for its EEG 2017 subsidy scheme. There is no concrete timeline as Germany needs to sign contracts with the respective countries, which need to open their auctions for German developers as well.

The cross-border auction in 2016 was a pilot run with Denmark. Danish developers won the entire capacity of 50 MW, with a then record-low winning tariff of €5.38 cents per kWh. In return, Denmark opened a 20 MW auction for systems in Germany.

The German Bundestag recently also passed technology neutral tenders where wind and solar will compete in Germany. There will be a pilot phase from 2018 to 2020 – and a total of 400 MW will be tendered as of 2018. While solar projects will be limited to 10 MW, there will be no upper limits for wind parks.