Direktvermarktung

Who needs it

From 100 kWp of installed capacity, subsidised direct marketing is the standard route. Below that there is a choice between it and the fixed feed-in tariff. The threshold refers to installed capacity, and under certain conditions several installations are aggregated for the test, which is regularly missed at the planning stage.

What the provider takes on

A direct marketer carries the installation in its balancing group, forecasts generation, sells the volumes on the exchange, settles the deviation between forecast and actual output, and claims the market premium from the grid operator. Technically this requires the installation to be remotely controllable and metered in quarter-hour intervals.

The provider's fee is usually a mix of a fixed annual component and a volume-linked one. Because the fixed part falls due regardless of size, the balance between the two shifts sharply with installation size.

What matters in the contract

Three points decide more than the price. First, tenor and notice period: a market where terms move does not tolerate long lock-ins. Second, the treatment of hours with negative prices, where no premium accrues and output is curtailed: who makes that call and on whose account. Third, how forecast deviation is settled, because part of the real cost sits there and often does not appear in the headline offer.

Unsubsidised direct marketing

Alongside the subsidised form there is unsubsidised direct marketing, with no premium entitlement. It is the route for volumes sold under a supply contract and for installations that have come out of the support period. Both forms can be switched between on notice, which gives assets with mixed routes to market a degree of flexibility.

For most projects direct marketing is not a decision but a consequence of installed capacity. What is decided is the contract, and there the difference lies less in price than in flexibility: a short tenor keeps the option of moving to a power purchase agreement later, once an offtaker is found.

In valuation, direct marketing is the point at which part of the revenue moves from the fixed into the variable band. For the financing that means a discount on that share, and the discount grows the shorter the contractual cover runs.

Practically, remote controllability belongs in the technical design early. Retrofitting it costs more than planning it in, and it is the precondition for the premium being paid at all.