The results of Greece’s first joint tender for solar and wind power have been published by energy regulator RAE.
A nominal seven facilities with a total generation capacity of 437.78 MW were awarded, with tariffs ranging from €0.053 to €0.06472/kWh. However, three of those projects actually make up one solar farm, planned by Juwi Group, with the German developer having represented the facility as three separate chunks of capacity in order to increase its chances of maximizing tariff income.
All but one of the projects awarded in the tender was solar, for total new PV capacity of 377.78 MW.
With the tender rules permitting the aggregation of small scale projects as long as they added up to at least 20 MW of capacity, the 66.60 MW of remaining allotted capacity was made up by a cluster of small wind farms bidding as one project, for which Greece’s Terna Energy secured a tariff of €0.060/kWh.
Successful investors
pv magazine has established, France’s EDF was behind the 60 MW, record breaking tariff of €0.053/kWh, which marked the cheapest payment agreed for solar power in Greece to date.
Juwi Group’s three successful bids were for 139.24 MW, 27.68 MW and 37.37 MW chunks of its 204 MW Kozani solar plant in northern Greece. The largest slice of capacity secured a tariff of €0.05446, with the other two to receive €0.06472, vindicating Juwi’s strategy. In a press release announcing its tariff wins, Juwi said the project will be the largest solar park in southeastern Europe.
Greece’s Spes Solaris was awarded two capacity bids – of 82.64 MW and 24.23 MW. Although both projects are in the Thiva region, they do not represent a single solar park. The projects secured tariffs of €0.05446 and €0.0584, respectively.
The only solar project which missed out on capacity in the tender was a 200 MW plant planned for Kozani that was supported by state-owned Greek utility the Public Power Corporation (PPC). That project offered an electricity price of €0.058 – lower than two of Juwi’s succesful bids – and it appears the utility missed out because it didn’t split the capacity as its German rival did.
The PPC is desperate to develop renewable energy to update a generation portfolio mainly comprised of coal and hydro assets but it appears the utility still has lessons to learn.
Remaining capacity
The RAE had initially sought to award up to 600 MW of renewables capacity in the mixed tender. However, bids for only 637.78 MW were received and the regulator insists tenders be oversubscribed by at least 40% for competition reasons. As a result, the RAE opted to award a maximum 455.56 MW of capacity.
The remaining capacity will be offered in future tenders, based on Greece’s renewable energy masterplan.
The mixed tender was the third procurement exercise since publication of the masterplan, and followed auctions in July and December.
This article was amended on 25/04/19 after pv magazine established Juwi Group’s three portions of capacity will be part of one solar project.
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“(…) but it appears the utility still has lessons to learn.”
Could you expand on this or provide some link to documentation/explanation?