EU authorizes Denmark’s scheme for mixed wind-solar auctions

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The European Commission (EC) has approved the support scheme for mixed wind-solar auctions that the Danish government announced back in April.

The EC said the auction scheme will have a budget of DKK 842 million (€112 million) for the two tenders, which will be organized in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and that these will be open to utility-scale PV projects, as well as to onshore and offshore wind projects.

The tenders will be technology-neutral, while selected projects will be entitled to sell their power to the spot market, and receive support in the form of a premium on top of the market price over a period of 20 years.

The EC also said that these tenders, together with two more support schemes aimed at further supporting wind power it approved, will help Denmark boost the share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources, while avoiding any distortion of competition on the market, as state support is minimized.

In April, the Danish government said that total budget for mixed wind-solar auctions for the period 2020-2024 was DKK 4.2 billion (around €563 million) “to ensure continuous expansion of onshore wind turbines and solar PV among other RES-technologies.” This means that, including the funds allocated for 2018-2019, total budget for wind and solar under this scheme is around €675 million.

Through these new schemes, the government said at the time, the average level of direct support for renewable energies is expected to decline from approximately DKK 0.22 ($0.035)/kWh, to DKK 0.10 ($0.016)/kWh. The plan for the creation of joint wind and solar auctions was proposed by the government last summer.

Denmark is currently also planning to implement a tender scheme for PV projects up to 1 MW.

According to the latest statistics available, Denmark’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached 854.8 MW as of March 3, 2017.

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