German rooftop tender still undersubscribed

The German Federal Network Agency’s (BNetzA) tender for rooftop photovoltaic systems, with a bid deadline of February 1, attracted 94 bids with a total capacity of 213 megawatts (MW). With a bidding volume of 217 MW, this round was thus still slightly undersubscribed, despite the fact that the maximum permissible value for bids had been raised last December to 11.25 euro cents/kWh (11.95 U.S. cents) from the previous 8.91 euro cents. However, the previous bidding rounds had produced far worse results.
After excluding seven bids due to formal errors, 87 projects with 195 MW were awarded; the average capacity of the plants is 2.24 MW. The volume-weighted average of the awards is 10.87 ct/kWh. According to the German Renewable Energy Law (EEG), rooftop installations with a capacity of 1 MW or more are required to participate in tenders.
The current results »give cause for optimism,« explained Carsten Körnig, chief executive of the German Solar Industry Association (BSW), because they indicate a continued increase in interest in large rooftop installations. However, without the increase in the maximum values and without the lifting of the ban on self-consumption for tender participants, »the auction would certainly have flopped.« In addition, the results are »a pointer« that the renumeration set in the EEG for smaller plants - which tend to be more expensive per kilowatt of output - is too low. This amounts to 9.4 ct/kWh for plants of 100 to 400 kilowatts and 8.1 ct/kWh for plants up to 1 MW - i.e. significantly less than the average value of the recent tender surcharges.
© PHOTON