Greece’s next renewable energy tender will take place on July 27, with two separate batches of capacity up for grabs, according to an announcement this week by the national energy regulator (RAE).
The first part of the tender will focus on solar plants up to 20 MW in size, with plans to award up to 482.03 MW of PV capacity. The second part of the procurement exercise will be for wind farms up to 50 MW size, with up to 481,45 MW of capacity on offer.
Investors who are interested in participating in the tender need to submit electronic applications to RAE by 5 p.m. (GMT+3) on June 29. If their applications qualify to participate in the tender, solar investors will be able bid from €0.063 (0.06)/kWh, while the starting bid for wind power projects has been set at €0.06299/kWh.
Investors can submit applications to participate in the tender without the need to propose tariffs. Bidding will only take place electronically on the day of the tender, by using the regulator’s software to ensure full transparency.
The energy regulator is using the application process to qualify projects and investors who meet the auction requirements. The rules require project developers to hold generation licenses and grid-connection agreements, in addition to providing financing guarantees.
Tender rules
A previous subscription rule – requiring both solar PV and wind energy tenders to be oversubscribed by at least 40% – also remains valid for the July 27 tenders. This is the reason why the authorities might end up awarding less capacity than planned in the upcoming summer tenders. For solar PV specifically, the tender subscription rules mean that at least 674,8 MW of PV must enter the tender for the full 482 MW of capacity to be allocated in July.
The regulator recently granted generation licenses for at least 800 MW of PV capacity, pv magazine has learned. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that all of this capacity will qualify to participate in the tender, as eligible projects must also have grid-connection agreements in place and provide financial guarantees.
Winning PV projects up to 1 MW in size in the July auction will need to connect to the grid within 12 months. Solar farms up to 5 MW and projects larger than 5 MW will have 15 and 18 months to connect to the grid, respectively.
Greece’s energy regulator says there are about 2.1 GW of renewable energy projects awarded via the country’s tender regime that are currently under development.
In April, the authorities held a renewable energy tender that led to the lowest tariff ever awarded to a renewable energy project in the country. A 200 MW solar PV plant was granted to state-owned Public Power Corp. (PPC) for a record-breaking €0.04911/kWh. PPC Renewables, the renewable energy arm of PPC, will auction off the project’s EPC tender on May 28.
