Applications & Installations

Cox Energy secures PPA for 660 MW of solar in Spain and Portugal

The power purchase agreement (PPA) relates to large-scale PV projects planned to be operational by 2020. The buyer of the power generated by the solar facilities is Spain’s power provider, Audax. 495 MW of the capacity will be located in Spain, while the remaining 165 MW will be installed in Portugal.
Emiliano Bellini
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Emiliano Bellini
José Elías, CEO of Audax and Enrique Riquelme, President of Cox Energy. | Image: Cox Energy

Spanish renewable energy developer, Cox Energy has secured a long-term PPA for 660 MW of solar power from Spain’s power distributor, Audax.

Cox Energy said Audax will buy the energy produced from PV power plants located in Spain with a combined capacity of 495 MW, and 165 MW in Portugal.

The company said construction on all the facilities will be started this year, with completion scheduled in 2020. Overall, total investment in these projects is expected to reach around €400 million, Cox Energy said.

“Cox Energy is firmly committed to the Spanish market and to become a new independent power producer with its own generation capable of competing without aid or subsidies on equal terms with the rest of traditional market players,” the company stated in a press release.

Cox Energy also said it will develop the new solar plants alongside an unnamed international partner, without providing more technical or financial details about the projects or the PPA.

The private PPA segment is currently seeing increasing interest in both countries of the Iberian Peninsula. Spain’s first solar PPA was announced by British firm, Foresight in late December, while in Portugal, the first 10-year PPA for a 10 MW solar project was signed in early January.

Furthermore, the number of the so-called “grid-parity” PV projects under development or under review by local authorities in both countries has exploded over the past year.

According to the Portuguese government, the number of approved “unsubsidized” large-scale solar projects reached 756 MW at the end of last year.

In Spain, in addition to the 3.9 GW of solar that was allocated in last summer’s auction, several more GWs of projects are in development, including, among others, new initiatives announced by Ellomay, Solar Venture, Baywa Re, Enel and Hive Energy.

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Comments

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Jul 19, 2018

[…] PPA refers to the energy production of solar systems with a total installed capacity of 660 MW (https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/03/20/cox-energy-secures-ppa-for-660-mw-of-solar-in-spain-and-portu…). These examples show that this still early market development is accelerating rapidly and is far […]

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Apr 10, 2018

[…] regained momentum. In late March, Spanish renewable energy developer, Cox Energy has secured a long-term PPA for 660 MW of solar power from Spain’s power distributor, Audax. Spain’s first solar PPA was announced by British firm, […]

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Mar 22, 2018

[…] this dynamic scenario and the fact that PPAs for large-scale solar projects have been recently signed, last year the Spanish solar market grew almost exclusively in the rooftop segment with around 135 […]

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