Portugal

The Portuguese government has revealed some of the preliminary results of the national solar auction which closed on Tuesday. Antonio Delgado Rigal, chief executive of energy forecasting service Aleasoft, said that the 15-year contracts awarded in the auction were the key to understanding the reason of such a low price. This, combined with the rights for land and grid connection guaranteed by the auction, makes attractive bidding at low prices.

The South Korean solar panel maker secured around 300 MW of the 700 MW awarded in the procurement round. The other winners are reportedly Spanish power company Iberdrola, Italian peer Enel and French-owned developer Tag Energy.

According to financial newspaper Expresso, the lowest bid in the exercise was €0.0112/kWh, slightly lower than the $0.0135/kWh submitted by French energy group EDF and China’s JinkoPower in a 2 GW tender held in Abu Dhabi, a price which was confirmed last month.

Minister of the environment and climate action, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, announced the development and revealed nine of the ten lots tendered include energy storage.

A consortium will develop the huge project with Danish wind turbine maker Vestas by 2030.

Spanish renewables company Acciona has commissioned Spain’s first floating installation and utility EDP has finalized the first, 1 MW phase of a 4 MW project at the Alqueva water reservoir in southern Portugal.

The proposed projects come from Portuguese and European companies covering the entire value chain. The call, which has a budget of up to €40 billion, is part of the country’s hydrogen strategy.

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.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Action will permit 220 self-consumption projects with generation capacities of no more than 1 MW to be connected immediately. The usual long-winded permitting process has been side-stepped as the government seeks to enable financially-stricken enterprises to benefit from lower energy bills during the public health crisis.

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.