Bulgaria

The Bulgarian authorities awarded BGN 526 million ($284 million) to 397 renewable energy projects in the country’s latest procurement exercise.

Up to €103 million ($107.2 million), from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Raiffeisen Bank International, will support the development of a fully-merchant, 237.6 MW solar project in southeastern Bulgaria.

International Finance Corp. (IFC) and Raiffeisen Bank International have signed off on a €90 million ($97.8 million) debt package to support the development of a 225 MW facility in northeastern Bulgaria.

Researchers have analyzed the viability of floating PV in terms of net present value, internal rate of return, and LCOE. They included 25 European countries in their work, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.

The Bulgarian government has approved a memorandum of understanding with Turkey’s Smart Solar Technologies AD for the construction of a solar cell and panel factory in southern Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has installed between 40 MWh and 50 MWh battery energy storage capacity to date. However, a new national legislation as well as funds provided through the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility could see the country install another 1 GWh over the next two years.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Energy is readying to launch a tender on September 2 and provide Capex support for the construction and commissioning of 3 GWh of standalone energy storage facilities. The public call is for projects equal to or greater than 10 MW with at least two hours of storage capacity, which will be primarily used in the frequency regulation markets.

Billed as the largest operating battery energy storage system in Bulgaria to date, the 25 MW/55 MWh facility, developed by Austria’s Renalfa IPP, came online at the start of the month.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will conduct economic and technological feasibility studies on two Bulgarian pumped storage hydropower plants due to be operational by 2032. The projects will each add generation capacity of around 800 MW and will both come with a price tag of around €900 ($964) million.

The first day of the RE-Source Southeast Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, this week underscored European and regional interest in renewable-energy projects based on corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs). Negative or very low electricity prices in European electricity markets affect the appetite for such projects, but the solution for investors and policymakers is to approach the issue systematically.