Kazakhstan’s solar auction concludes with lowest price of $0.0297/kWh

Kazakhstan electricity and power market operator JSC Korem has allocated 20 MW of PV capacity in a solar energy auction finalized this month.

JSC Korem received 14 project proposals with a combined capacity of 60 MW in the procurement exercise and prices ranged from KZT16,96 ($0.0392) to KZT12,87 ($0.0297)/kWh.

The winning project is a 20 MW solar plant proposed by Kazakh developer NextEcoEnergy PTE LTD LLP, which submitted the lowest bid in the auction.

The country's Ministry of Energy said in a statement that another 20 MW solar auction will be held in 2022.

In 2020, JSC Korem allocated 55 MW of PV capacity in two different procurement exercises. The lowest final prices of the two auctions were KZT14.99/kWh and KZT14.58/kWh, respectively. Two projects, totaling 40 MW, were secured by Russian module manufacturer Hevel Solar.

In the first solar auction, held in 2018, JSC Korem selected four PV projects totaling 170 MW and the lowest bid was KZT18.6/kWh. In a second, 50 MW procurement exercise held a year later, the total allocated power was 50 MW and the lowest price was KZT12.49.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Kazakhstan had an installed solar power generation capacity of around 1,719 MW at the end of 2020. Most of this capacity – around 570 MW – was deployed in 2020 alone. Several more projects were built outside the country’s auction scheme over the past years.