BONN (dpa-AFX) - A planning boom for onshore wind turbines: The latest round of tenders by the Federal Network Agency has seen more contracts awarded than ever before, explained Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) in Berlin. "These are the wind turbines and renewable electricity of tomorrow," said Habeck. According to the grid agency, 189 bids with a volume of 2,379 megawatts were awarded in the tender on May 1. The tender was for 2,795 megawatts.

"This is the result of hard work and shows that the industry can take advantage of the improved framework conditions," Habeck continued. In total, contracts with a capacity of around 4,200 megawatts have been awarded so far this year. Two further rounds are still to come. "We are therefore on track with our expansion targets and have increased by 40 percent compared to the previous year," said the Minister.

Grid Agency President: expansion targets achievable

The President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, spoke of a trend of increasing bid and approval figures. "If this positive development continues, the expansion targets for onshore wind are achievable."

According to the Federal Network Agency, the values determined in the bidding price procedure are between 7.20 and 7.35 cents per kilowatt hour, with an average of 7.33 cents.

The largest commitments were for bids for locations in North Rhine-Westphalia (727 megawatts, 68 awards), Lower Saxony (430 megawatts, 26 awards) and Schleswig-Holstein (318 megawatts, 17 awards)./tob/DP/mis