CfD

Quinbrook completes financing for Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, England. The solar and storage project will be the largest in the United Kingdom when it goes live later in 2025. The developer claims contract for difference, capacity market and power purchase agreements (PPAs) were critical to securing project financing.

In a major policy shift toward electricity market liberalization, China has introduced contract-for-difference (CfD) auctions for renewable plants and removed the energy storage mandate, which has driven up to 75% of national demand to date. S&P Global expects the move to reverberate through the global battery storage supply chain, further driving down prices already at historic lows.

Revised data brings annual PV additions to 1.3 GW for 2024, putting 18 GW of total deployed capacity within touching distance. However, a significant increase in deployment speed is essential to hit UK government clean energy targets for 2030.

Consultation ahead of seventh Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation round proposes longer contract lengths in a bid to reduce strike prices and lower cost of finance for renewables projects. A wider target commissioning window for solar projects is also proposed, in response to larger capacity plants in the pipeline.

Big results needed in next two contracts for difference (CfD) allocation rounds to hit UK renewables targets, according to Aurora Energy Research. Solar likely to benefit from greater CfD budgets as government targets faster deployment, Marc Hedin, head of research for UK and Ireland, tells pv magazine.

The UK government announced a new business model for hydrogen, based on dispatchable power agreements available to carbon capture technologies.

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners announces two long-term agreements covering 100% of solar power generation at Cleve Hill Solar Park. British supermarket retailer Tesco has signed a 15-year agreement covering 65% of generation and Shell will manage remaining capacity under 10-year route-to-market deal.

Record contracts for difference (CfDs) auction for UK solar results in more than 90 projects securing fixed-price contracts. It follows intervention from the new UK government in summer 2024 to increase the auction budget. Strike prices achieved for all renewables technologies were well below the auction’s ceiling price.

Romania’s Ministry of Energy has approved a new contracts-for-difference (CfD) mechanism, set to launch later this year. The first round will include 500 MW of solar, with the remaining capacity to be allocated in next year’s tender.

The Spanish utility says the 189 MW Promina project, currently under development, will be Croatia’s largest solar farm upon commissioning in 2027.