Germany awards licences to increase onshore wind capacity by 1 GW
Reuters reported that Germany will increase its onshore wind energy capacity by more than 1 gigawatt, equal to that of a nuclear plant, under new licences awarded. The regulator introduced an auction system this year to award licences, aiming to intensify competition among project developers in order to lower costs and wean renewable energy away from subsidies. In the second auction under the new system, the Bundesnetzagentur (BnetzA) said it accepted 67 applications, mostly from citizens' cooperatives, for a combined volume of 1,013 megawatt. Overall, 281 bids with a joint capacity of 2,927 MW had been submitted.
BnetzA's President Mr Jochen Homann said in a statement that "The second round of tenders, too, was characterised by high competition. Compared with the first round, the average price at which projects were awarded fell by more than 1 euro cent per kilowatt hour."
The projects, most of which are located in eastern Germany, were approved at an average price requiring a subsidy of 4.28 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), down from 5.71 euro cents/kWh in the first round in May.
Rather than guaranteeing a fixed price for 20 years, as was the case in the past, only those operators that can generate electricity from wind at the lowest subsidy are given a construction licence within a fixed capacity.
Citizens' co-operatives, which are favoured in the new auction system over big commercial players in order to make development more acceptable within local communities, accounted for 90 percent of the successful bids.
Source : Reuters