AO10 is live: Inside the rules of France's largest offshore wind auction
On 12 June, the French government published the final tender documents for AO10 and opened bidding for ~10 GW across 11 fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind projects. Bids are due 12 October, with awards expected in March 2027. It is France's largest offshore wind auction to date, and the final rules give bidders the clarity they have been waiting for.
The biggest change from the draft material: the Capability CfD is gone.
The regulator, CRE, pushed back on its novelty, its tight timeline, and the sheer scale of the auction. In the final documents, the government reverted to a hybrid two-sided CfD, retaining extensive adjustment and compensation mechanisms. The result is a scheme that ranks among the most complex in Europe, with competition rules that add real weight to bid preparation. Three aspects stand out.
Price wins, but robustness is scored
Of 100 points, 88 go to economic and financial value. Within that, 18 points reward the robustness of a bidder's cost, financing, and technology assumptions, not just the headline price. With a short bid window before 12 October, locking in supply chain alignment early becomes a genuine pressure point rather than a formality.
European local content is now in the rules
Criteria drawn from the EU Net Zero Industry Act reward EEA-sourced key components and a lower manufacturing carbon footprint. Local content has moved from ambition to scoring line, and it will shape sourcing decisions that bidders can no longer defer to the construction phase.
Clearing is a two-phase puzzle
Projects are removed one by one against a weighted-average target strike of 100 EUR/MWh (2024 real), ranked by grid-connection timing and price. Shared substations make some bids mutually dependent, so a single project's fate can pull others with it. Award limits cap each bidder to one extension site and one site per maritime region. Reading who clears is less about any single project's price and more about how the whole field resolves against the target.
We modeled all 11 projects
Using Aegir Quant™, we modeled all 11 projects to estimate CfD bid prices, inform award speculation, and show relative competitiveness across the field. Our new Insights report pairs that modeling with an in-depth breakdown of the auction structure, the competition rules, and the support scheme, so bidders can pressure-test their own assumptions against an independent view.
Explore the full analysis
Aegir Insights' clients can access the full AO10 report, including the modeled bid prices for all 11 projects and the detailed read on the auction design, on the Aegir Platform.
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