Germany's path to green energy: auctions as a tool to push prices down

The first part of this series on Germany’s path to renewable energy looked at the recent history and the start of renewable energy construction after 2000. The second part focuses on the transition to an auction system, which was intended to lower costs for large installations in Germany. In addition to introducing separate auctions for solar and wind power plants, Germany also experimented with joint auctions in which different technologies competed against each other.

The next step in the evolution of renewable energy development in Germany was the introduction of auctions for installations with a capacity of more than 750 kW. The transition to auctions was already enshrined in the 2014 amendment to Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2014), although the specific conditions were set out in subsequent amendments. Apart from several pilot rounds for ground-mounted solar in 2015 and 2016, the full-scale auctions themselves, including those for other types of generation, began in 2017.