Federal Network Agency

12/06/2023 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/06/2023 04:38

Results of auction for biomass plants

Results of auction for biomass plants

Year of issue2023
Date of issue2023.12.06

The Bundesnetzagenturhas today announced the results of the auction for biomass plants that closed for bids on 1 October 2023. The biomass auction was again significantly oversubscribed. This tendering round received a record high number of bids.

"With 892 bids, this auction exceeded all expectations and was thrice oversubscribed. We processed nearly twice as many bids as in the previous round. Never before were more bids submitted in a tendering round," said Klaus Müller, President of the Bundesnetzagentur.

Auction for biomass plants

The auction was for a volume of 288 megawatts (MW). A total of 892 bids with a volume of 910 (MW) were received. There were eight bids totalling 15 MW for new installations and 884 bids with a total volume of 896 MW for existing plants.

The auction resulted in 270 bids with a total volume of 288 MW being awarded. The successful bids comprised eight totalling 15 MW for new installations and 262 totalling 274 MW for existing plants. The prices of the successful bids range from 11.57 cents per kilowatt hour (ct/kWh) to 18.98 ct/kWh. The average volume-weighted award price in this round is 18.28 ct/kWh, down from 18.92 ct/kWh in the previous round. "The drop in the prices of the successful bids reflects the rise in competition. In the future, declining bid volumes will likely increase competitive pressure," commented Klaus Müller.

Bids in biomass auctions that come from the southern region (which generally corresponds to areas south of the Main River) are given priority. Half of the volume tendered goes to projects there. All of this prioritised volume was again successfully awarded.

From a regional perspective, Bavaria was awarded one third of the successful bids (93 MW, 99 winning bids), followed by bids for locations in Baden-Württemberg(50 MW, 49 winning bids). Schleswig-Holstein(44 MW, 34 winning bids) and Lower Saxony (32 MW, 29 winning bids) finished in third and fourth place respectively.

There were 32 bids that had to be excluded from the tendering procedure due to formal errors.

Next steps

Further information about the auctions is available on the Bundesnetzagentur'swebsite at www.bundesnetzagentur.de/bioausschreibungen23-2 (in German).

The statistics for the auctions are updated after each auction.

The next auction for biomass plants will end on 1 April 2024.