Prices in Germany's solar auction fall below EUR 50/MWh for first time in years

At the beginning of last December, Germany held the third and final round of auctions for ground-mounted solar projects in 2024. Interest in the auction was once again very strong, with the volume of projects submitted rising by more than 10% compared with the previous round. Awarded prices fell slightly again, with the average dropping below EUR 50/MWh for the first time since early 2019.

Germany held three separate auction rounds last year to support the construction of ground-mounted solar power plants. In the auction, German grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur offered more than 2.1 GW of capacity. Interest was once again very strong, with 4.7 GW of submitted projects more than doubling the auction volume.

Of the 524 bids submitted in total, the regulator had to reject 45 projects, or nearly one tenth. Even so, the auction was comfortably oversubscribed, and 242 projects with an installed capacity of 2150 MW secured support. The regional picture remained stable, with the largest number of successful projects in Bavaria (916 MW). They were followed by a wide margin by the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein (213 MW), Lower Saxony (192 MW) and Baden-Württemberg (176 MW).

Awarded prices ranged from 38,8 to 49,5 EUR/MWh, with a weighted average of 47,6 EUR/MWh. Compared with the previous round, the average price fell by around 3 EUR/MWh. In the December auction, the average price fell below 50 EUR/MWh for the first time since February 2019. Prices then rose sharply in March 2019 and remained above 50 EUR/MWh for several years in a row.