Germany has awarded contracts for 490MW of solar-plus-storage projects co-located with renewable energy in its latest “innovation” tender.
The Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency) stated that the tender was oversubscribed by over four times, with 163 bids received for a total proposed capacity exceeding 2,182MW. The initial tender offered contracts for 486MW of new capacity.
The winning bid prices ranged from €0.0479/kWh to €0.0559/kWh, with a volume-weighted average price of €0.0531/kWh. Bavaria was the state awarded the most capacity (11 projects totaling 122MW), followed by Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg, each with approximately 50MW.
The Bundesnetzagentur stated that this average price is “significantly lower” than the €0.0615/kWh in the previous innovation tender, which was also oversubscribed by about four times.
Prices in the recent three innovation tenders have dropped sharply; the October 2024 round had an average price of €0.0745/kWh, which then fell to €0.0615/kWh in July, and further decreased to €0.0531/kWh in this most recent round.
Klaus Müller, President of the Bundesnetzagentur, noted that the previous tender in July had already set a record with bid volumes exceeding 2GW for the first time. This latest tender has broken that record.
The economic dynamics in Germany’s renewable energy sector are reflected in the price decline, intense competition, and strong demand. Although the tender was open to any co-located renewable energy or storage projects, all awarded projects were solar-plus-storage.
Brent Wanner, Head of the Power Sector Unit for the World Energy Outlook at the International Energy Agency (IEA), stated at the Energy Storage Summit hosted by Solar Media earlier this year that solar-plus-storage has become increasingly cost-competitive in “major global markets.”
However, Wanner mentioned that markets need to adapt and be designed to accommodate more co-located assets.
The cost of solar equipment has been low over the past 18 months, with battery costs following closely. The IEA’s Renewables 2025 report, released this week, stated that solar PV will account for about 80% of the significant global renewable capacity expansion over the next five years, primarily due to its low cost and ease of deployment.
This week, the German solar trade association Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW-Solar) called on the government to set a legal target of reaching 100GWh of energy storage capacity in Germany by 2030.
