Germany auctions more sites for offshore wind farms, developers to pay nearly 800 million euros

In August, Germany held its second offshore wind farm auction of the year, in which developers competed for the sites on offer, for which they are to pay hundreds of billions of euros. The second auction of the year follows the previous round in June, which brought significantly higher winning compensation payments, even taking its larger volume into account.

At the beginning of the month, Germany held further auctions for the construction of renewable energy sources, including an auction for the construction of offshore wind farms. Unlike in the first round, developers competed for sites that had already been surveyed by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. In total, four sites in the North Sea were up for auction, with capacity for wind turbines with a combined output of 1.8 GW.

According to Germany's Federal Network Agency, for the first time the auction applied qualitative criteria in addition to the bids offered, including the decarbonisation of offshore construction and the use of environmentally friendly turbine foundation technologies. The wind farms from this auction are expected to begin operating by 2028.