Germany sees record interest in operating support for wind farms

Germany is continuing to transform its energy sector, relying heavily on the development of wind and solar power. For wind farms, four auction rounds were held last year in which developers could compete for support for their projects. The latest round, in November, attracted record investor interest, with developers submitting projects with a combined capacity of more than 8 GW.

As in previous years, Germany held four auction rounds for onshore wind farms last year. The latest round took place at the beginning of November and offered almost 3.5 GW of capacity for bidding, a similar volume to the previous auction. After years of unsuccessful auctions, when Germany struggled to attract enough bids for wind power, the situation changed in 2024.

This trend continued last year, with all onshore wind auctions receiving more bids from developers than the capacity on offer. The final auction of the year attracted a record volume of projects. Developers submitted bids for more than 900 projects with a combined capacity of over 8.1 GW.

"The submitted capacity of more than 8 GW is the highest ever recorded in the auctions. Looking at 2025 as a whole, this means that the volume of bids submitted in each round fortunately exceeded the capacity on offer. At the same time, the prices awarded fell in every round," said Klaus Müller, president of Germany's network regulator.

According to data published by Germany's federal regulator, 415 projects with a total installed capacity of 3.4 GW ultimately won in the auction. Awarded prices ranged from 58 to 61.2 EUR/MWh, with a weighted average of 60.6 EUR/MWh. This is a noticeable decrease compared with the previous round, when the average was 65.7 EUR/MWh.

The higher volume of projects and lower auction prices may be supported by the growing popularity of repowering in Germany in recent years. This involves replacing retired wind turbines with more modern, higher-capacity machines. The awarded capacity data therefore do not make clear what net increase in installed capacity these projects will deliver.

As in this round, the largest number of successful projects was in wind-rich northern Germany, specifically the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (1093 MW), Lower Saxony (1091 MW) and Brandenburg (262 MW).