Portugal releases auction for 262MW of floating solar

• Portugal has introduced its most current solar public auction that is set to allocate 262MW of floating PV to be installed at 7 dams throughout the country.

The Alqueva dam in the southerly Algarve area is readied to host 100MW of floating solar, the largest project included in the public auction, followed by 50MW at the Castelo de Bode dam in the centre of the nation. The projects are expected to be operational by 2023.

Prospective prospective buyers are enabled to submit proposals between 29 January and 2 March 2022, with the auction set to take place on 4 April.

"We are certain that this public auction will bring in enormous passion," claimed Portugal's energy assistant, João Galamba, adding that the nation intends to launch a sequence of auctions in the future to benefit from the nation's reservoirs. The priest has formerly said floating solar can reduce land accessibility dangers as designers are not tasked with searching for ideal websites themselves.

Initially due to take place in September and allot 500MW of floating solar capability, the current auction complies with Portugal's previous two solar auctions, in 2019 as well as 2020, for ground-mount projects that both closed with record low prices.

Speaking at a discussion today, Ignacio Cobo, a senior consultant at consultancy company AFRY, stated the auction will give prospective buyers two ways of taking part: a fixed tariff for 15 years, or with a contribution to the system in which the gamer pays a quantity over 15 years in exchange for receiving accessibility to the network.

Previous floating solar implementation in Portugal has actually seen utility EDP set up a 220kWp pilot project at the Alto Rabagão dam, which is currently set to hold a 42MW plant through the upcoming auction. EDP additionally began construction last summer season of an additional floating solar plant at the Alqueva dam that the company claimed could be functional by the end of 2021.

Prepare for the auction have actually formerly rated by Portuguese renewable resource organization APREN, whose chief executive officer Pedro Amaral Jorge informed PV Technology Premium previously this year that the nation's auctions are useful for the solar industry as they draw in foreign investors, while also helping the country achieve its decarbonisation goals.

Shuttering its only continuing to be coal plant-- a 628MW power station-- last weekend break, Portugal has currently become the fourth nation in the European Union to quit making use of coal to produce electrical energy.

With the country aiming to get to 9GW of deployed solar by 2030, its ground-mount utility-scale PV sector is readied to be boosted by current news from the likes of Galp and also Lightsource bp, which is spending EUR900 million (US$ 1.1 billion) to fund the advancement of solar projects with an integrated capability of 1.35 GW.