The Federal Network Agency revealed the results of the most recent onshore wind turbine tender round in May 2023, and they confirm the long-term trend of somewhat huge undersubscriptions of the EEG tender rounds in previous years. The Federal Network Agency reduced the capacity of the first intended tender from 3,210 to 2,866 megawatts (MW), but only 1,535 MW were actually granted in the May 2023 contract. Thus, only a little bit more than half of the capacity that was offered was actually given.
A north-south gap is evident when the actual award quantities by federal state are compared. In terms of the volume granted in the most recent tender, North Rhine-Westphalia is in the lead, followed by Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. This is in line with North Rhine-Westphalia’s admirable efforts to revise its state development plan in order to move the 1.8 percent area objective from the Act on the Determination of Area Requirements for Onshore Wind Turbines (WindBG) from the end of 2032 to the end of 2025. Through the proposed Lower Saxony Law for the Implementation of the WindBG of May 16, 2023, the state of Lower Saxony also intends to advance the 2.2 percent statewide area objective until the end of 2026. Nonetheless, the growth of
In the May 2023 bidding round, the states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Hesse received disproportionately modest surcharges. The last-place states are Saarland and Bavaria. In reality, they earned no award amounts in the most recent round of bidding. This implies that in the May 2023 tender round, Saarland and Bavaria will come out empty-handed. The following wind onshore tender will be held in August.