They could also just split the Germany into multiple bidding zones, then north parts of Germany would have a lot of cheap wind power, similar as in Sweden.
Over the figurative dead body of Bavaria. They want cheap energy for their industry, they don't want wind power because it's ugly and bad for tourism, they will maybe accept a little well-hidden solar power, they don't want overland cables because they are ugly, and they don't want underground cables because they heat and dry out the ground. There is also some market distortion because energy is traded as if transfer capacity was unlimited, but when Bavaria buys cheap wind power that can't be moved, they still pay the cheap price but the energy is locally "replicated" at e.g. gas power stations, which is paid by... OK, I forgot, but it's a terrible system.
These "they" are different Bavarian persons and groups depending on topic, but the net effect is that Bavaria is Germany's energy bully.
Fortunately, several gigawatt-class HVDC lines are coming online this year. These somehow happened despite the protests, it's a minor miracle.
Sweden has lots of potential for long-term energy storage as hydro power, which makes wind power viable. Northern Germany is mostly flat and there's not even close to enough storage capacity (on the order of ~weeks) to make a wind powered grid economically competitive.
There has been a long standing request to split Germany into multiple price zones[1], because Germany as a single zone does not adequately match the underlying network transmission limitations and there have been multiple occasions where power flowed through neighboring zones, which in turn required both network upgrades[2] in the zones neighboring Germany and expensive redispatch[3] in the south Germany. Industry in the south of Germany fights this back as this would mean the energy prices in the south would rise (and drop in the north), as when the transmission lines are congested, the prices start to diverge.
Keeping Germany a single zone is essentially a subsidy to Bavarian industry. The industry fights this so hard that it has basically become an energy insider joke.
If someone had guts (not the current governments) they would split the Germany into zones and all the Bavarian whining about “ugliness” would fade rather quickly when the prices went up.
Not sure if you're serious, but this was not viable in the 2010s, or even today in Germany at all because of Germany's high latitude: No matter how efficient solar panels become, they will always be more economical to operate closer to the equator. Anyway, the Chinese factories for the most energy intensive parts of solar panel production mostly run on coal power.
> Anyway, the Chinese factories for the most energy intensive parts of solar panel production mostly run on coal power.
That's because China itself is mostly coal, not because of anything magical about particular sources. However, coal is now in decline even in China: https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china
Before someone (accurately!) says the decline in coal is tiny and one year doesn't make a trend: This is likely to continue until there is no more coal for the same reason the UK also completely stopped generating electricity from coal: cost.
PV's absurdly cheap. China has a lot of land, doesn't need to care about optimal use of the Gobi desert.