PV Ground-Mounted Solar Auction in Germany: Demand Stays High as Oversubscription Eases

Bonn, Münster – The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur, BNetzA) has announced the successful bids from its auction for ground-mounted solar (PV) installations for the bid deadline of July 1, 2026. Bidder interest remains strong, with the round again oversubscribed.

BNetzA's auction rounds for ground-mounted PV and for solar installations on structures other than buildings or noise barriers (first-segment solar installations) have been significantly oversubscribed over several consecutive rounds in Germany. This time, however, the gap between bid volume and the tendered capacity narrowed considerably compared with the previous round, a sign that the dynamic may be beginning to shift — though this has not yet reversed the fundamentally high interest in ground-mounted projects.

Oversubscription Factor Falls from About 2 to About 1.5

Against a tendered volume of 2,135 megawatts (MW), bidders submitted 401 bids totaling 3,170 MW. That puts the submitted bid volume at roughly 1.5 times the auctioned capacity, down from a factor of around 2 in the previous round on March 1, 2026. BNetzA excluded 48 bids from the award process, leaving 261 successful bids with a combined capacity of about 2,135 MW — nearly matching the tendered volume in full.

Awarded prices under the bid-price procedure ranged from 4.38 to 4.97 cents per kilowatt-hour (ct/kWh). The volume-weighted average award value came in at 4.79 ct/kWh, below the previous round's 4.94 ct/kWh. "The auction was again oversubscribed. The prices of the successful bids were slightly lower than in the previous auction," said Klaus Müller, President of BNetzA.

Bavaria Leads State Ranking Ahead of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate

By federal state, Bavaria again received the most awards, with 429 MW across 75 awards, followed by Baden-Württemberg (266 MW, 41 awards), Rhineland-Palatinate (239 MW, 25 awards), North Rhine-Westphalia (233 MW, 21 awards) and Lower Saxony (225 MW, 28 awards). Bavaria has consistently topped the state ranking in previous auction rounds.

Market Data Register: Bavaria Remains Top for New Installations, National Additions Slightly above Prior Year

According to an IWR analysis of BNetzA's core energy market data register (Marktstammdatenregister), Germany newly commissioned PV installations with a combined capacity of about 9,594 MW between January and July 2026, based on data as of August 16, 2026. That compares with 9,470 MW in the same period a year earlier, an increase of 1.3 percent.

Bavaria accounted for around 2,213 MW of that total. Despite remaining clearly in the lead, this represents a decline of 13.2 percent from 2,550 MW in the same period last year. Baden-Württemberg ranked second with about 1,166 MW (down 14.5 percent), followed by North Rhine-Westphalia with about 1,119 MW (down 8.0 percent). Brandenburg moved in the opposite direction, with newly installed PV capacity rising to about 960 MW between January and July 2026, up 90.5 percent from 504 MW in the same period a year earlier.

The next auction round for first-segment solar installations is scheduled for December 1, 2026.

Source: IWR Online, 19 Aug 2026