Germany has announced the results of its first offshore wind auction round for 2025. It was a price-only auction for the “not centrally pre-developed” N 9.4 site in the German North Sea. The 146km2 site will host a wind farm with a capacity of up to 1.2 GW. The turbines will generate enough electricity to power more than one million households.
The auction round included negative bidding. TotalEnergies submitted the winning bid. They will have to pay €180m for the right to build the wind farm. We congratulate our member TotalEnergies on this success.
But Germany’s offshore wind auction design needs revision. Negative bidding makes offshore wind more expensive. “Negative bidding creates additional costs which have to be passed on to consumers and the wind energy supply chain. It may be a short-term gain for finance ministries. But it’s a long-term cost for society”, says WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson.
Negative bidding also reduces the number of offshore wind developers in Germany. Only two bidders were willing to participate in this negative bidding round.
Most countries in Europe have instead introduced 2-sided contracts for difference (CfDs) as a revenue stabilisation model for offshore wind development. CfDs mean lower financing costs and more visibility on future revenues. Germany should switch their auction model to CfDs as well. It’s what the EU wants governments to do – along with the alternative PPA option for developers looking to sell power directly to industrial offtakers.
The second German offshore auction round will take place in August. It will auction two sites with a total capacity of 2.5 GW. These sites will be centrally-predeveloped. The auction will use a combination of negative bidding and non-price criteria.
Source: WindEurope asbl/vzw, 17th June 2025
www.windeurope.org
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