Cabinet adopts draft regulation for common solar and wind power tenders

Germany’s cabinet has adopted a draft regulation for the introduction of common tenders for solar and onshore wind power installations, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) said in a press release. The tenders will be tested in a “pilot phase” from 2018-2020 with an annual volume of 400 megawatts (MW). State secretary Rainer Baake said there had been “good reasons” for holding separate auctions for the two technologies so far, such as better regional allocation and supply security, but the pilot phase was meant to explore possible benefits of “cross technological tenders.”
The German Solar Industry Association (BSW) was critical of the common tenders and expected onshore wind power to be more successful in the early stages, Sandra Enkhardt writes for pv magazine. The regulation did “not provide fair competition conditions” and led the two technologies to thwart each other in direct competition, BSW head Carsten König told pv magazine.

Read the press release in German here and the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet High hopes and concerns over onshore wind power auctions for more information.