Choose your route to market, then win it
Rounds are crowded. Winners pick their route early and arrive with the case built.
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Download the white paper (PDF)Choose the route before the round chooses it for you.
Five messages for your leadership team.
The route is a decision, not a deadline.
Pick the anchor route for each project before the next round or buyer process picks it for you.
Four routes, one project.
CfD rounds, merchant, corporate PPAs and private wire all draw on the same facts. Describe the project once.
Know how the round pays.
In a pay-as-clear round your floor price decides whether you win. In a pay-as-bid round your bid is your price.
Process first, data second, agents third.
Look at how your team chooses and bids today, fix the two biggest pain points, structure the evidence, then add agents.
People choose and sign; agents carry the load.
Agents read the rules, assemble the evidence, draft and cross-check. Every round makes the next one better.
CEOs and heads of development, commercial and origination at renewables developers, IPPs and utilities in the UK and Europe, onshore and offshore.
Offshore seabed leasing rounds are a separate topic and a separate paper.
More rounds, more routes, the same team
Support rounds are bigger and more contested, the rules are changing across Europe, and buyers are pickier. Each project now has more ways to reach market, and each way asks for its own case.
14.7 GW
Awarded across 201 projects in the UK's seventh CfD round, the largest round to date.
2 times
Germany's August 2026 onshore wind round drew 5,250 MW of bids for 2,520 MW on offer.
3 times
France's latest onshore wind tender drew 2,378 MW for 800 MW, and the average price fell by €9.5/MWh.
The rules are moving
Across the EU, at least 30% of each country's auctioned renewable volume, or 6 GW a year, must now carry non-price criteria. Responsible business conduct, cybersecurity and the ability to deliver on time are tests to qualify. Resilience and sustainability can also be scored.
From 17 July 2027, new direct price support for wind and solar in the EU has to take the form of two-way contracts for difference or an equivalent. In the UK, CfDs for wind and solar now run for 20 years from AR7.
Buyers are pickier
Disclosed European PPAs came to 13.1 GW across 247 deals in 2025, down from 15.3 GW in 2024. Spain stayed the largest market at 3.9 GW.
Spain shows why one route is never enough. Its last renewables auction, in November 2022, offered 3,300 MW and awarded 45.5 MW. Projects there went to market through PPAs instead.
The UK clock: AR8 applications closed on 7 August 2026. The budget and auction notices are due on 19 November, with results expected in February 2027.
Four ways to sell the power, four different cases to make
Every route answers one question: who pays for the power, for how long and on what terms. What changes is who you must convince, and the evidence they want.
CfD round or state auction
A government round awards long-term price support. The UK runs CfD allocation rounds such as AR7 and AR8; France runs CRE tenders; Germany, the Netherlands and Spain run their own auctions.
You convince: the round's rules, with a sealed price and the evidence to qualify.
Merchant
The project sells at market prices, often with hedges, short-term deals or a trading partner. Common as the tail after a contract ends, and sometimes as the plan for part of the output.
You convince: your board and lenders that the price case holds.
Corporate or private PPA
A long-term contract with a buyer: a company, a utility or a trader. It can be physical, sleeved through a supplier, or virtual (financial). Terms, tenor and credit decide its value.
You convince: one buyer's energy, legal and credit teams.
Private wire
A direct cable from the project to a nearby user, such as an industrial site or a data centre, usually alongside a grid connection. Energy down the wire avoids most network charges, but it needs its own consent, land rights and licence position.
You convince: one user, the landowners on the route and the planners.
What recent rounds cleared at
| Round | Technology | Price |
|---|---|---|
| UK AR7 | Offshore wind, England and Wales | £91.20/MWh |
| UK AR7 | Floating offshore wind | £216.49/MWh |
| UK AR7a | Onshore wind | £72.24/MWh |
| UK AR7a | Solar | £65.23/MWh |
| France, CRE | Onshore wind, weighted average | €77.08/MWh |
| Germany, EEG | Onshore wind, weighted average | 4.79 ct/kWh |
No route wins on every count
The trade-off is always the same: certainty against upside and control. Read across a row to see what you give up for what you gain.
How the four routes usually compare
Know how the round pays
The UK CfD is pay-as-clear: every successful project in a pot and year gets the same clearing price. Bidding lower raises your chance of winning, not your income, so the work that matters is an honest floor price.
Germany's onshore wind auctions are pay-as-bid: each winner gets its own bid. There the bid price is the income, and every euro counts twice.
Most projects combine routes
A CfD covers the contract years and leaves a merchant tail. A PPA can cover part of the output while the rest sells at market. The useful question is which route is the anchor: the one that makes the project financeable.
Four questions find the anchor route
Ask them per project, at least once a year and whenever a round, a buyer or the grid date changes. The answer is the anchor; other routes can sit alongside it.
Four questions, one anchor route
Offshore
Scale and capital cost usually make a state round the anchor, with corporate PPAs part of the mix in some markets. The grid date and the supply chain set which delivery year is credible.
Onshore
All four routes are live. A strong corporate buyer or a nearby large user can beat the next round on timing, and a round can beat a thin PPA market on price certainty.
Many markets, the same questions
The names change: CfD allocation rounds in the UK, CRE tenders in France, EEG auctions in Germany, renewables auctions in Spain and the Netherlands. The questions do not: can the grid date meet the delivery year, does the floor price clear, who else would buy the power, and who can carry the price risk.
Where teams slip: answering the first question from the round calendar instead of the grid date, and the second from last year's capex.
First, look at how you decide today
Most of the value lost in route and bid work is lost before and between documents, not inside them. So the first step is not a tool. It is a clear look at the process you run today, its bottlenecks and the reasons behind them.
The deadline picks the route
The next window decides where the project goes, not a comparison of routes.
Evidence rebuilt every time
Land, consent, grid, yield and cost evidence is gathered again for each round or buyer.
The floor price set late
The walk-away is agreed in the final week, on inputs nobody has rechecked.
The same project, told differently
Capacity, dates and prices drift between the round, a PPA offer and the board paper.
Lessons never written down
Results, clearing prices and buyer feedback stay in inboxes.
Start with two. Pick the two loss points that cost you most, and find the reason for each. Fix those first. The rest can wait.
The order that works
What do you run today? Map how the route is chosen and how a bid is built. Remove steps that add nothing. Simplify what is left.
What does it run on? One record per project: facts, evidence and assumptions, versioned and owned.
Then add the agents, on the redesigned process, with named people deciding at each gate.
Revisit the real problem first
Why does a bid take as long as it does? Which steps exist because of a rule, and which because "we have always done it"? Is this the right round for this project at all? Automate a broken process and you get a faster broken process.
Eight steps to win the round
The same steps work for a CfD application, a CRE tender, a PPA process or a private wire offer. Agents prepare; people decide at every step.
Eight steps, with a decision at every gate
Value a bid before you write it
Expected value of a bid
What agents change
- More rounds and buyers covered by the same team.
- Senior time moves from chasing and reconciling to price, partners and negotiation.
- Every claim traced to a source, every number matched.
- Each round leaves a better record for the next.
A governed system on your data, learning every round
Ignis builds the system around your team, on your own documents and in your own environment. It keeps the record, runs the repeatable work and brings every decision to a named person.
People and gates
The AI manager
Breaks a goal such as "AR8 application for project B" into tasks, gives each to the right agent, checks the output and stops at each gate for a decision.
The record is yours
Facts, evidence, past bids and buyer terms stay in your environment under your access rules. The more rounds you run, the better it gets.
What stays human
The route, the price, the walk-away, partner terms and the signature. Relationships with buyers, communities and government.
People keep the decisions. Agents carry the rules, the evidence and the first drafts.
How ready is your team for the next round?
Ten yes or no questions. Tick what is true today, not what is planned.
Questions for your team on Monday
- Which rounds and buyer deadlines fall in the next 90 days, and who owns each one?
- What is our floor price for each, and when was it last tested?
- Where does the same project appear with different numbers?
- What did we learn from the last round, and where is it written down?
Start with your two biggest pain points, not with a platform
The first step is short and low risk: a discovery and gap review, then a map of how your team chooses routes and builds bids. Two weeks at most. The price stays open until we have seen the work.
From discovery to a live round
Your goals, your portfolio calendar, and the two biggest pain points in route choice and bidding, with their causes.
One recent bid traced end to end on its own documents. What people keep, what agents carry, where the gates sit.
Redesign the process, structure the evidence and set the gates for the next live round.
Your team runs a live round or buyer process on the new way of working, then embeds it.
Guardrails
- Ignis advises and designs; your team decides.
- Your data stays yours, in your environment.
- Process before platform: tool-agnostic.
Bring one project and the next round or buyer process on your calendar. We will look at which route should anchor it and where your team loses time today. Talk it through with Yorik.
This paper offers a commercial view only. It is not legal, regulatory or investment advice. Market figures were checked in October 2026; round dates can change.
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