Spanish government provides auction’s official numbers: allocated solar capacity reaches 3.9 GW

The Spanish Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda has announced in a press release that it has allocated 5,037 MW of renewable energy generation capacity in the auction it held on Wednesday. Of this capacity, the ministry specified, 3,909 MW is for large-scale solar power plants, while another 1,128 MW will come from wind power projects.

As for the allocated solar power, this is around 400 MW higher than the 3.5 GW that local solar association UNEF had previously estimated. The government said that the low prices submitted with the bids will ensure that the power produced by projects selected in the auction will be completely paid for by the market, without additional costs for electricity consumers. The ministry also stated that the technology-neutral auction has selected only the most efficient and viable projects, and that this and the auction held in May, with which it allocated more than 8 GW of wind and solar energy capacity, will enable Spain to comply with its 2020 EU renewable energy targets.

All of the projects selected in the two auction must be operational by the end of 2019.

According to the provisional data provided yesterday to pv magazine by the UNEF, the largest share of solar project was achieved by Cobra, a unit of Spanish industrial group ACS with 1.55 GW of assigned projects, followed by X-Elio (455 MW), Endesa (338 MW), Forestalia (316 MW), Gas Natural Fenosa (250 MW), Solaria Energía (250 MW), Prodiel (182 MW), Greenalia (133 MW) Alter (50 MW), Gestamp Wind (24 MW) and Alten (13 MW). It still remains unknown which companies were able to secure the contracts for the remaining 400 MW.