Solar prices keep falling. Today, an astonishing bid of 2.42 U.S. cents per kWh has been entered into a tender in Abu Dhabi for a huge utility-scale plant in Abu Dhabi. The bid was entered into an Abu Dhabi Electricity and Water Authoritys (ADWEA) tender by a consortium of JinkoSolar and Marubeni.
The plant is to be built in the town of Swaihan northwest of Abu Dhabi. A new settlement is being built in the region and it is need of quick, affordable electricity. Understanding that solar could be the cheapest option, ADWEA invited bids for a 350 MW, but allowed bidders to increase the size of the development.
While the auction has not been won yet, a senior representative of Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) confirmed with pv magazine that a consortium of JinkoSolar acting as the developer and Japanese company Marubeni entered a world record low price of 2.42 U.S. cents per kWh. The previous world record stood at 2.91 cents per kWh at an auction in Chile in August 2016.
pv magazine understands that the bid put forth by Jinko and Marubeni is for a project that is considerably bigger than the 350 MW originally intended.
The winners of the auction have not been decided yet, with a number of bids under consideration. A bid from a consortium of Masdar, Abu Dhabi's energy company, EDF Energies Nouvelles and PAL Group was also submitted to ADWEA, and is now under evaluation.
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