DGEG

Despite a slow start to the year, BloombergNEF expects Portugal to install another 1,363 MW of solar by the end of 2023. The likelihood of that scenario seems to come down to how quickly projects from the record-breaking 2019-20 solar auctions go online, if they do so at all.

Portugal’s cumulative PV capacity hit 2.59 GW at the end of 2022, outpacing the growth of other renewable energy sources. The country failed to meet its own installation predictions, likely because some large-scale projects awarded in the 2019 and 2020 auctions ended up missing their commissioning deadlines.

One of the first items in the in-tray of the country’s new Socialist Party government must be to unblock Portugal’s seemingly huge appetite for PPA-backed merchant solar sites and to deliver the PV projects which were tendered by the authorities, to global acclaim, in 2019 and 2020.

Solar developers can submit applications from today. The rules of the procurement exercise were published by the nation’s Directorate-General for Energy and Geology.

State secretary for energy, João Galamba, said the planned procurement round will have to wait for markets to be less turbulent. The auction was due to be held in April. Meanwhile, a dedicated portal for future rounds has been created.

When the minister of environment and energy announced a ceiling tariff of €45/MWh, analysts speculated the price would be too low as it undercut average bidding prices in the region. Preliminary, unconfirmed results of the exercise show, however, companies are happy to bid for two-cent solar in Europe.

Including the latest three projects, the country’s total approved large-scale solar capacity has surpassed 1 GW. The developer is Escalabis Solar and total investment is expected to reach €81 million.