In the latest round of PV tenders conducted in Germany, bidders did not respond well to the bidding activity, bidding only 714MW of PV systems, while the tenderer planned to tender for 1.126GW of PV systems.
According to the Bundesnetzagentur survey, bidders submitted just 116 bids for a total installed capacity of 714MW in this round of tenders, which closed on June 1.
This is the first time a German PV project tendering campaign has faced under-subscription, with only 109 bids received, with a total installed capacity of 696MW.
Six bids had to be excluded from the bidding process due to formal errors. Bids could not be considered because the designated state's quota of arable land or grassland acreage has been exhausted.
The German Federal Network Agency believes that the increase in the installed capacity of photovoltaic systems tendered is the main reason for the lack of tender subscriptions, because the total installed capacity of photovoltaic systems tendered in 2022 will reach 3.6GW, almost the same as the previous year (1.85GW). double.
The German Federal Network Agency tenders 1.126GW of photovoltaic projects in arable land and grassland areas in some states. The tender for the PV project is part of a three-phase tender campaign with a total installed capacity of 3.6GW announced earlier this year by the agency.
The agency added that rising prices for PV modules and the time it takes to complete projects have created a sense of uncertainty. As a result, larger developers are turning to projects with power purchase agreements outside of Renewable Energy Act (EEG) tenders.
The Renewable Energy Act (EEG) tender offers guaranteed grid connection, preferential dispatch and a 20-year feed-in tariff set by the government, depending on the technology and size of the PV project.
The PV electricity price determined in the tender is between EUR 0.0487/kWh (approximately $0.051/kWh) and EUR 0.0569/kWh (approximately $0.0594/kWh). The weighted average electricity price of this round of bidding is 0.0551 euros/kWh ($0.0575/kWh), which is higher than the weighted average electricity price of 0.0519 euros/kWh (about 0.057$/kWh) in the previous round.
Regionally, Bavaria had the largest number of successful bids (399MW, 64 bids), followed by Schleswig-Holstein (72MW, 6 bids) and Lower Saxony (45MW, 7 bids) ). By category, the majority of bids were for arable land or grassland projects, including 55 bids with a total installed capacity of 372MW. Bavaria has 43 bids with a total installed capacity of 297MW.
The next round of tenders for Phase 1 PV projects is scheduled for November 1, 2022, a date that has not yet been approved by the European Commission, so it is uncertain if and under what rules.
In March, Bundesnetzagentur also auctioned 1,084MW of PV projects. And earlier this year, the agency tendered 1,108MW of photovoltaic projects and 275MW of biomass energy systems. Compared with the average electricity price of the previous three tenders, the electricity price of this PV tender has increased by 8% to 0.0557 euros (about 0.062 US dollars)/kWh.
