Statement by BWO Managing Director Stefan Thimm

“We are pleased about the keen interest of companies in participating in the expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany. On the one hand, this shows the great interest in this established technology for climate-friendly electricity production and, on the other hand, the willingness of the offshore industry to set up wind farms in Germany.

In the legislative process, we had already criticized the fact that the willingness to pay is determined in the bidding process without a cap. In principle, we stand by this criticism. The uncapped negative bid component increases the financing costs of the projects, which has a direct negative impact on consumers' electricity costs.

From our point of view it is important that the successful bids also lead to successful projects. The federal government must now specify its considerations as to which industrial policy instruments it will use to ensure that the projects can be implemented on time. In view of the dynamically developing expansion plans in many regions of the world, there are bottlenecks in the value chain.”

Hintergrund: 

As expected in industry circles, several bidders declared their willingness on June 1st to set up projects on the four new offshore wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas without funding ("zero-cent bids"). The three areas in the North Sea are being tendered for 2.000 MW each, and those in the Baltic Sea for 1.000 MW.

The provisions of the Wind Energy at Sea Act stipulate that these bidders signal their willingness in a "dynamic bid process" to also pay a "bid component" for the award.

In this procedure, the bidders must announce their willingness to pay and the bidder with the highest willingness to pay is awarded the contract.

In the online talk on March 30, 2023 with Dominik Hübler, Stefan Thimm already discussed possible scenarios for the bidding process. You can watch it here: https://bwo-offshorewind.de/online-talk-2/