An auction is a market mechanism with the aims of allocating goods in case of excess supply and price discovery for goods with unknown market prices from an auctioneer’s perspective.

The allocation is based solely on the bids submitted by the participating bidders according to transparent awarding rules.

Generally, we distinguish between sales auctions, where the auctioneer sells one or multiple goods to the buyers and procurement auctions relevant for the RES context, where the bidders act as suppliers and offer their good(s) to the auctioneer.

Auctions with more than one criterion are called tenders. In the context of renewables support auctions, common criteria include: