Interest in Germany’s storage auctions is enormous, while awarded prices are falling

Another round of innovative auctions took place in Germany early last month, the second of the year. In these auctions, developers of projects combining different renewable energy technologies or energy sources with storage compete for operating support. The second round of the year again attracted strong investor interest, with the volume of projects submitted reaching four times the volume on offer. As usual, solar plants paired with battery storage dominated the auction.

Germany has scheduled a series of auctions this year to support the development of renewable energy sources (RES), including two rounds of so-called innovative auctions. Only projects combining different renewable energy technologies or energy sources with short-term storage can compete in these auctions. For projects equipped with storage, these components must account for at least 25% of the system’s total installed capacity and be capable of fully discharging within two hours.

The second round of the year took place in early September, with the German network regulator Bundesnetzagentur offering a total of 486 MW of capacity for tender. The second, and final, round of 2025 thus offered developers the same volume as the previous one.

Developers submitted a total of 163 projects to the auction, with installed capacity of almost 2.2 GW, once again setting a record, surpassing the previous round. In the end, 33 projects were successful, and, as in previous rounds, there were no surprises: only projects combining solar plants with battery storage were awarded contracts.

The awarded guaranteed minimum prices ranged from 47.9 to 55.9 EUR/MWh, with a weighted average of 53.1 EUR/MWh. This represents a fairly substantial drop compared with the previous round, as the weighted average reached 61.5 EUR/MWh in the May auction. For comparison, the latest auction for ground-mounted solar without storage, held in July this year, delivered an average of 48.4 EUR/MWh.

Southern Germany again dominated the auction, led by Bavaria (122 MW), which accounted for roughly a quarter of the total capacity. The next largest volumes, at a distance, went to the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein (54 MW) and Brandenburg (51 MW).