Germany's July solar auction clears in full at 4.79 ct/kWh as award prices keep easing

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The Bundesnetzagentur has published the result of the 1 July 2026 tender for ground-mounted solar in the first segment, and the round cleared in full at prices that continue to drift down. The weighted-average award value came in at 4.79 ct/kWh, below the 4.94 ct/kWh of the March 2026 round and comfortably under the 5.90 ct/kWh ceiling set for the round. Awarded prices ranged from 4.38 to 4.97 ct/kWh.

The regulator tendered 2,134,567 kW and received 401 bids totalling 3,169,977 kW, a coverage rate of 148.51 percent. It awarded 261 bids for 2,134,657 kW, so the full tendered volume was allocated. Competition remains healthy even though the field cooled from the March round, when 532 bids chased a similar volume for a coverage rate above 200 percent.

For operators the signal is in the price trajectory rather than the volume. Two consecutive first-segment rounds have now settled below 5 ct/kWh on a weighted-average basis, with the July clearing level near 47.9 EUR/MWh. That marks where subsidised ground-mount solar economics currently sit in Germany, and it is the reference point against which a corporate PPA or a merchant route has to compete. With the EEG reform moving new wind and solar toward two-sided Contracts for Difference from 2027, these late-EEG auction levels are a useful benchmark for any plant weighing the support route against building outside the scheme.

The wider read is that price discipline in German utility solar is holding, with every award landing well inside the ceiling and the tendered volume fully placed. For an asset manager or developer modelling revenue on a new German solar plant, the question is how a merchant-plus-PPA structure compares against a support level now anchored below 48 EUR/MWh, and how capture-price and negative-price exposure move that calculus over the life of the asset.

If you want to see where auction-cleared levels, capture prices and PPA benchmarks sit across European solar markets in one place, SEMT tracks them continuously. You can explore it at https://synertics.io/signup/ or reach us at info@synertics.io to talk through how it applies to your portfolio.