Germany Scales Back Offshore Wind Auctions After Latest Flop

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Germany moved to reduce the capacity it will auction in its offshore wind tender in 2026, following the flop in the latest auction without a single bid made.  

The German Parliament approved legislation narrowing the capacity in the 2026 tender to just 2.5 gigawatts (GW) to 5 GW, compared with an earlier plan of auctioning off 6 GW of offshore wind capacity and with as much as 10 GW offered in the auction in August. 

The August offshore wind auction without government subsidies failed to attract a single bid, alarming the local offshore wind sector, which is calling for a fundamental redesign of Germany’s renewable energy auctions. 

The Federal Network Agency’s auction for 10.1 GW offshore wind farms in the German part of the North Sea ended with no investor submitting a bid for any of the two proposed sites, the Federal Association for Offshore Wind Energy, BWO, said.  

The auction flop signals that offshore wind power developers are wary of taking on riskier, zero-subsidy projects amid rising costs and supply chain issues. 

In response to the failure in the August auction, Germany’s ruling coalition proposed reduced capacity up for grabs, and the proposal was approved by Parliament in a package also aimed at speeding up permitting and other approvals for offshore wind projects and power grid upgrades. 

“Offshore wind is facing a difficult market environment, both internationally and in Germany,” the Economy Ministry said in a statement carried by Bloomberg. Surging costs and tight supply chains deter offshore wind expansion, the ministry noted.   

Germany is expanding onshore wind installations but offshore wind capacity additions are nowhere near its targets. 

Days before the flop in the August auction, German industry associations said that offshore wind power installations had stagnated in the first half of 2025. For offshore wind to reach the ambitious government targets of boosting capacity to 70 GW by 2045, policy makers need to fundamentally revise the tenders and ensure additional revenue and planning security, the German wind energy association, Bundesverband WindEnergie (BWE), and several other sector groups said.