German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has launched a tender for the N-9.4 offshore wind site in the North Sea which can accommodate 1 GW of installed offshore wind capacity.
The tender is open for bids until 1 June with the maximum bidding value set at 6.2 eurocents/kWh as per Section 19 of the Offshore Wind Energy Act (WindSeeG) which established this price cap for non-zero-subsidy tenders from 2023 onwards.
The project at the N-9.4 site will connect to the NOR-9-4 (BalWin5) offshore grid which will be built by TenneT and is expected to go into operation in 2032.
The offshore wind farm is scheduled to be connected to the offshore platform in the first half of 2032 and to be fully operational in the third quarter of the same year.
The N-9.4 offshore wind tender is the first of several planned over the next four years that could bring as much as 12 GW of additional installed offshore wind capacity to the German grid.
The site is one of the three areas to be awarded that did not go through the preliminary site investigation, which is left to the project developer to undertake.
The other seven of the total ten sites Germany will auction off until 2029 are pre-investigated by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).
Germany’s offshore wind targets are at least 40 GW of offshore wind in operation by 2035 and at least 70 GW by 2045.
According to BSH, which issued a new Site Development Plan with a few newly defined areas on 30 January, Germany can expect to have a total installed offshore wind capacity in 2034 of around 42.6 GW, including the newly defined areas, approved offshore wind farms and those under construction and the areas defined in the 2023 plan.