Lowest bid in Malta’s third PV tender hits €0.12/kWh

Malta's Ministry for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development has announced the results of a tender for 15 MW of solar, which was launched in May. The ministry allocated 11 MW of capacity across eight projects, ranging in size from 1 MW to 3 MW.

The five successful developers include Electrofix Ltd., which secured 5.4 MW at four sites, and Luxury Living Technologies, which won 3.4 MW at two sites. George Baldacchino also made the list with a 1 MW plan, and Migvin secured a 1.2 MW project. The lowest offered price was €0.12 ($0.15)/kWh and the highest price was €0.129/kWh.

The procurement exercise was the third round of a tender program that started in late 2017. It involves three tenders for around 50 MW of total solar capacity. The first round, held in February 2018, allotted around 15 MW of capacity to developers. The second PV tender round was held in August 2018.

Malta had 154 MW of cumulative installed solar capacity by the end of 2019, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The government supports rooftop PV with a net metering program. A feed-in tariff for solar arrays up to 1 MW in size was terminated by the government in May 2016.