Gas power plants: Germany’s grid regulator awards 5.16 gigawatts, around €800 million a year paid by electricity customers

What did the Federal Network Agency decide on 3 November?

On 3 November 2026 the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) published the results of the first tender for new gas power plants under the Electricity Supply and Capacity Act (StromVKG). Of 41 bids, eleven won, totalling 5,160 megawatts. Seven awards go to Leag (Jänschwalde, Boxberg, Leipheim), three to RWE (Voerde, Weisweiler, Werne) and one to Stadtwerke Karlsruhe; battery storage bids did not succeed. The plants are to be ready by 2031 at the latest and will be paid for 15 years to keep capacity available, even if they run only a few hours a year. According to regional reporting, the average award value is around €155,300 per megawatt per year, which across all projects comes to just over €800 million annually. I could not retrieve the agency’s own release, so the figures rest on dpa and regional media. How the electricity price and its levies fit together is explained in the guide to the components of the household electricity price.

Who pays for the plants: households, landlords and businesses

The cost is financed through a new levy on the electricity price. In principle it hits all end users: households, landlords paying for communal electricity and heat-pump tariffs, trades, commerce and mid-sized firms. How high it will be per kilowatt-hour is open, because further tender rounds follow; according to dpa the next bid deadline is 29 December, and the announcement of the second round was planned for 10 November. Figures from advocacy groups, such as the BUND estimate of around €12 billion over 15 years, are not official numbers. Consumers only start paying from 2031.

Why security of supply remains a question of price

The logic is easy to follow: with coal phased out by 2038 and wind and sun absent in low-output periods, the system needs dispatchable capacity, and that does not pay for itself on the market. What is new is that this safety component will appear as a separate item on the electricity bill, next to grid fees, the offshore levy and the surcharge for special grid use. “Anyone who wants security of supply for low-wind, low-sun periods will pay for it as a levy on every kilowatt-hour. Businesses and landlords should build this item into their electricity planning from 2031, even though it has no number yet.” — Pedram Dadgar, Strategic adviser to Green Contracting GmbH.

I have worked on energy projects since 2021, and one pattern is stable: system costs do not disappear, they move between taxes, grid fees and levies. That the plants will first run on natural gas and are meant to switch to hydrogen by 2045 at the latest also pushes fuel and CO₂ risks into the future. For owners, the lever remains their own consumption and self-generation, because every kilowatt-hour generated or saved yourself also escapes the levies of the coming years.

What to do now

1. Add a placeholder “capacity levy from 2031” to electricity cost calculations for buildings and operations, instead of looking only at the energy rate and grid fee.
2. Review self-consumption: photovoltaics, storage and load shifting reduce the volume subject to levies.
3. Factor in the levy amount only once the follow-up rounds and the agency’s determination are published; third-party estimates remain provisional.