Germany puts three new offshore wind sites out to tender

German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) opened tenders for three new offshore wind sites on 26 February. Two of the sites are located in the North Sea and one is situated in the German part of the Baltic Sea.

The tenders are open until 1 September, with the maximum value of bids limited to 7.3 eurocents per kWh. The bidder(s) with the lowest funding requirement for a wind farm will receive a contract, according to the authority’s website. For two of the three areas, however, there are legal entry rights of the companies that originally planned offshore wind farms there.

The three sites can accommodate a total installed offshore wind capacity of 958 MW, of which 658 MW is in the North Sea (sites N-3.7 and N-3.8) and 300 MW in the Baltic Sea (site O-1.3). The wind farms to be developed under this tender must be up and running in 2026.

This is the first time the offshore wind tendering procedure is being held according to a “central model”, within which not only the funding and the grid connection capacity are being tendered, but also the planning approval given by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) for the development of offshore wind farms at the tendered areas.

The tenders for the new sites were launched after the BSH published the results of the preliminary investigations for these three areas in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The N-3.7 and N-3.8 sites are located some 30 to 40 kilometres north of the island of Borkum. The N-3 zone is in close proximity to the Gode Wind cluster. The area O-1.3 in the German EEZ of the Baltic Sea is located about 40 kilometres northeast of the island of Rügen. The area is in the vicinity of the 350 MW Wikinger offshore wind farm. 

The BSH marked the areas as suitable for the construction and operation of offshore wind farms in March 2020, after a preliminary examination of the suitability of the three areas in accordance with the German Offshore Wind Act.