Storage prevails in France’s capacity auction

From pv magazine France

The objective of France's long-term auction (AOLT) is to enable the development of capacity to secure long-term electricity supply. The winners will benefit from a guaranteed price over seven years under the capacity mechanism, for assets to be put into service in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

The Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition of France (MTES) published a complete list of winners this week, with storage taking two-thirds of the capacity up for grabs. French energy service providers RES and Voltalis were among the winning companies. According to Réseau de Transport d'Électricité (RTE), the national transmission system operator, around 253 MW of new storage capacity and 124 MW of new generation capacity was allocated in the procurement exercise.

Although the auction sought capacity for four different time frames, only the 2021-27 and 2022-28 periods were successful. The authorities did not assign any capacity for the 2020-26 and 2023-29 periods.

For the first two time frames, the regulated price was €29,000/MW and €28,000/MW, respectively. Pricing for the other two periods was set at €19,000/MW and €21,800/MW, respectively.

“For each auction, the guaranteed price corresponds to the price offered by the selected offer closest to the price of the demand curve. The demand curve, reflecting the value brought to the community, was proposed by RTE and approved by the Minister of Ecological and Solidarity Transition and the Energy Regulation Commission,” RTE said.

For 2021-27, eight projects were selected, representing 151.1 MW in total, including 93 MW of storage and 58.1 MW for generation. For 2022-28, another 225.7 MW was allocated, of which 159.7 MW went to battery systems and 66 MW to generating plants.

In terms of storage, Total – via its subsidiary, BHC Energy – won 103 MW, with 58 MW for the 2021-27 period and 45 MW for 2022-28. AFD7, a project company owned by Amarenco France, won a 75 MW project for the 2022-28 period, while RES won two 24 MW projects. The other winners of smaller projects, ranging from 1 MW to 7.6 MW, were ZE Energy, Valorem, Entech, Neoen, Aloe Energy, and Innergex.