- The latest auction’s highest allowable bid for this category was EUR 0.0743 per kWh.
- To grant 397 MW of capacity, the agency accepted the lone bid for a solar power plant and storage system in Bavaria.
In an effort to reflect rising project costs and spur developer interest in the competition, Germany’s Federal Network Agency today boosted the maximum price for this year’s rounds of the innovation auction by 25% to EUR 0.0918 (USD 0.099) per kWh.
The latest auction’s highest allowable bid for this category was EUR 0.0743 per kWh.
The regulator hopes to strengthen the terms of the tender by increasing the maximum value for novel concepts, according to Klaus Mueller, president of the agency. This will enable developers to get competitive bids.
For initiatives promoting the grid and system integration of renewable energy and resulting in a more consistent supply of power from such plants, the innovation tender is seeking proposals. The tender is open to technologies in the fields of wind, solar, energy storage, biomass, geothermal energy and hydropower and the bidders decide which combination of technologies they will pick.
Every year, there are two rounds of the tender, with deadlines on May 1 and September 1. Each of the two calls will aim to assign 400 MW of capacity in 2023.
In 2022, the final round of the tender, there was a significant undersubscription. To grant 397 MW of capacity, the agency accepted the lone bid for a solar power plant and storage system in Bavaria. Its capacity wasn’t made public. Beginning in 2022, when the first request sought bids totaling 397 MW and chose projects totaling 402 MW, interest in the bidding was higher.
Earlier this year, the Federal Network Agency raised also the price caps for ground-mounted and rooftop solar as well as onshore wind power and this led to stronger interest in the first tenders for 2023.