Jordan delays announcement of Round 3 PV tender winners

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On September 10, the final bidders in Jordan’s Round 3 auction, where 150 MW of solar PV and 50 MW of wind capacity are up for grabs, were announced.

In a statement at the time, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), Hala Zawati, said it would take two weeks to officially award the successful developers.

Also based on the timetable outlined in the tender documents, the evaluation process – which takes six months from the date of submission of the offers, and which took place last April – has almost passed.

The reason behind this delay is likely to be the, as of yet, undecided size distribution of the winning projects.

Indeed, the selection and awarding criteria shared by MEMR outlines its tender process in three main steps: (i) base proposals for projects 50 MW in size are opened and then ranked in ascending order in an “initial ranking”; (ii) alternative proposals for projects 100 MW in size are then opened for the three to four developers, which submitted the lowest bids in the first step; and (iii) all the offers are then ordered into a “final ranking”, where the bids for the 100 MW projects, and the 50 MW projects, compete for the available capacity.

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Thus, while three developers have been shortlisted for the initial ranking, bids for the 100 MW projects, where lower prices are likely to be submitted, have not yet been opened.

It is expected that just two projects – one 100 MW and one 50 MW – will end up being selected, given the price gap between the first two lowest bids, and the third one in the initial ranking.

Here, JinkoSolar submitted a bid worth US$0.02488/kWh, followed by RAI Energy International and its local partner, Capital Investments & Brokerage, with $0.0250 and Canadian Solar Inc., as part of a consortium with local EPC and developer, Kawar Investments, ranked third, with $0.034404/kWh.

By Amjad Khashman, Masters candidate in Energy Economics and specialized in renewable energy in the MENA region, with technical background

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