AES releases 1 GW renewable project solicitation

From pv magazine USA

AES has released a massive request for proposal (RFP) seeking to purchase up to 1 GW of energy, environmental attributes, ancillary services, and capacity from new renewable energy projects, as part of a partnership with Google that began in November to help the company reach its clean energy goals.

While this is a huge amount of capacity to be procured at once, it’s well in line with Google’s purchasing history, as the company has already contracted more than 5.5 GW of renewables.

In this sense, ‘”new” means any project with commercial operation dates between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2023. Eligible projects will include new solar, new DC coupled solar+storage, new/repowered wind – both onshore and offshore – and other new carbon-free energy sources, excluding standalone storage projects.

AES will consider projects between 20 MW and 800 MW in size, but if any developer wants to sell a portfolio of projects to it, they will have to do so under a single contract and price. Additionally, AES will only consider projects where a company would be purchasing a share of the generation if the AES share is separately metered and can be independently settled.

Any developer interested in submitting proposals for this RFP must send an expression of interest to AES by June 26, alongside a statement of qualifications and a completed copy of a nondisclosure agreement. From there, interested developers should submit any RFP-related questions to AES by July 1.

Questions will be answered by July 8 and submissions are due by July 22. After all proposals have been reviewed, AES will award final projects selections on October 5, though this is subject to change.

Expression of interest submission and all RFP-related documents can be found on the AES RFP page.