A success story, for the industry and for the institutions. This, rightly, seems to be the “political takeaway” from the outcome of the FER-X auctions. Two auctions - the largest ever held in Europe - that awarded CfDs for more than 15 TWh at a price roughly half of today’s energy cost. According to reasonable GSE estimates, they could generate savings of over €400 million per year on consumers’ bills starting in 2027, thus confirming the virtues of the Italian design (FER-X + FER-Z + MACSE): a framework initially viewed with suspicion for its regulatory intrusiveness, and later turned into a reference in the European debate.
A closer look, however, reveals two very different stories for solar and wind. As different, increasingly, as their trajectories: solar progressing steadily toward the PNIEC targets, wind falling short of them.
Solar. The solar auction saw 10.1 GW of bids itself a noteworthy fact, since in theory participation could have been three times higher: around 30 GW of projects were authorised, or nearly so, and eligible. In our view, this reflects the low average project quality in the pipeline: many of the supposedly ready-to-build projects were, evidently, nothing of the sort.
Of the 10.1 GW submitted, 7.7 GW won. The remainder bid too high (1.4 GW), withdrew (due to emerging issues or to participate in the NZIA auction: 0.7 GW), or was excluded by the GSE for errors or lack of requirements (0.2 GW). Nearly the entire maximum contingent (8 GW) was therefore allocated, in this peculiar auction where, due to the dynamic quotas introduced by the MASE, full allocation was not guaranteed even in the presence of oversubscription. In fact, only bids below 62.7 €/MWh (the clearing price) were accepted. More than 75% of participants, however, bid below 60 €/MWh: the average winning bid stands at 56.8 €/MWh, with some projects settling for less than 50 €/MWh (the auction is pay-as-bid). Complaining now about having bid too low is pointless: the entire regulatory design aimed precisely at revealing operators’ costs, and it fully achieved that goal. And those bidding above 55 €/MWh who regret not having asked for more should consider that - most likely - even only one additional gigawatt of participation would have pushed the clearing price below €60/MWh, vindicating their choices.
Sicilian, large, and backed by a structured operator: this is the typical profile of the winning project. Hybrid merchant structures (FER-X + PPA, leveraging the option to auction only a quota of the project) had no discernible impact; few opted for them in any case.
Almost half of the winning capacity (3.4 GW) is located in Sicily. Once these plants are operational, the region’s Burden Sharing target will be within reach - perhaps one reason why “the Sicilians” treated the auction as a last tango before the curtain falls, in the form of prohibitive PPAs or discouraging signals in the upcoming definitive FER-X auctions. Sicilian projects already enjoyed a natural advantage thanks to high irradiation, only partially offset by zonal premia for the Centre and North (4 and 10 €/MWh), which proved effective: average bids across North, Centre, and South clustered around 59.5 €/MWh despite different irradiation levels, while Sicily came in lower by roughly 2.5 €/MWh.
Few freelancers participated (10% of bidders, even fewer winners) in an auction dominated by structured operators (renewable platforms, utilities, funds, and major developers) who mostly brought large projects. Three gigawatts exceed 70 MW; 5.5 GW exceed 30 MW. Their bids were the most competitive: roughly 3 €/MWh below medium-sized projects (10–30 MW) and 5 €/MWh below small ones (<10 MW). Size mattered. The real test now lies in building the largest cohort of projects ever undertaken in Italy.
Wind. The wind story is less successful, with results an order of magnitude smaller than solar. Participation reached only 1.7 GW - already far from the 2.5 GW maximum contingent. Discounts were modest: all bids below €77.7/MWh won, with an average winning tariff of 72.8 €/MWh. Only 0.9 GW were awarded (more than half in repowering projects).
Here too, dynamic quotas had an effect: despite lower participation than the maximum contingent, not all projects won - almost 700 MW were excluded for insufficient discounts. This marks success from a market-efficiency perspective, less so in terms of target trajectory. It is not hard to imagine that, a few years from now, those 700 MW - excluded for bidding just 2–3 €/MWh above the implicit threshold - will be sorely missed.
Article written by Tommaso Barbetti (Partner at Elemens) and originally published in Italian on Quotidiano Energia on 5 December 2025. We thank Quotidiano Energia for kindly authorising the publication of this English translation on our website.