Germany’s Latest Solar-Plus-Storage Tender Awards 480 MW at Record-Low Prices
Germany’s Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, concluded its latest solar-plus-storage innovation tender on Tuesday, awarding 480 megawatts of capacity out of 678 MW offered, with winning bids averaging €0.0514 per kilowatt-hour. The auction drew 53 bids for 32 winning projects, all of which pair photovoltaic generation with battery storage rather than standing alone as conventional solar farms.
Prices keep drifting down
The average award price continues a multi-year decline in what Germany calls its Innovation Tender, a bidding format created to reward projects that combine generation with storage so they can shift output to match grid needs rather than simply feeding in whenever the sun shines. Winning bids ranged between €0.0450 and €0.0540 per kWh in this round, down slightly from the €0.0475-€0.0559 per kWh range and €0.0534 per kWh average that developers accepted in the previous auction in June. Average prices have fallen by roughly a third from the €0.08 per kWh level the Bundesnetzagentur recorded when the format launched in 2023, tracking the broader decline in battery costs over the same period.
Bavaria pulls ahead again
Bavaria took the largest share of the awarded capacity at 177 MW, extending a pattern in which the southern state has consistently attracted the bulk of Germany’s solar-plus-storage build-out thanks to strong irradiation and available land. Brandenburg followed with 94 MW and North Rhine-Westphalia with 48 MW, with the remainder spread across smaller allocations in other states. The tender undersubscription — 480 MW awarded against 678 MW offered — suggests developers are being more selective about which projects they bring to auction even as the format matures, rather than bidding aggressively to fill every available slot.
Why Germany pairs the subsidy with storage
Unlike Germany’s standard solar auctions, which pay a fixed premium for generation regardless of when it is delivered, the Innovation Tender format only compensates projects during hours when a reference solar index shows low output, pushing developers to install batteries that can shift some of their generation into evening and night-time hours. That design responds directly to a problem German grid operators have flagged repeatedly: on sunny days, solar output can already outstrip demand at midday, while evening ramps still lean on gas and imports. Coupling storage with new solar capacity through the tender is one of the more direct policy levers Berlin has for addressing that mismatch without resorting to new subsidy categories.
Part of a wider European storage push
Germany’s results land in the same week that Ukraine’s own solar-plus-storage auction drew far more bids than the volume on offer, even as its standalone solar tender fell short, a sign that European developers and regulators alike are converging on paired storage as the preferred model for new solar capacity rather than an add-on. The falling German award prices give other European tender designers a benchmark for how quickly paired-storage costs are moving, at a time when the European Commission has separately been reviewing how member states manage storage mandates across the bloc’s energy system.
Sources
- Bundesnetzagentur, September 2026 Innovation Tender results (solar-plus-storage) — awarded capacity, bid count, price range and average, regional breakdown. bundesnetzagentur.de
- pv magazine, “Germany wraps up solar-plus-storage tender with average price of €0.0514/kWh,” September 29, 2026 — independent reporting confirming tender results and historical price comparison. pv-magazine.com
- ESS News, “Germany wraps up solar-plus-storage tender with average price of €0.0534/kWh,” June 2026 — previous round’s results used for comparison. ess-news.com
Illustrative image. Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source
