Spain First Tender: Distributed photovoltaic projects with a capacity of 5MW or less will be added to the bidding.
Spain First Tender will allocate up to 140 megawatts of distributed solar photovoltaic capacity in the renewable energy bidding held in April 2022.
The bidding round has a total of 500 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, of which 200 megawatts are centralized photovoltaic power generation, 140 megawatts are biomass energy, and 20 megawatts are other technologies.
Distributed photovoltaic projects with a capacity of 5 megawatts or less will also participate in the bidding. The winning bidder needs to complete the construction within two years, followed by a 12 year power purchase agreement.
Spain’s Ministry of Eco-Transformation said that the advantages of distributed photovoltaic power stations include reducing the demand for grid infrastructure and the ability to help democratize the national power system.
The tender will be held on April 6, 2022. For the CSP part, the bidding project must contain at least 6 hours of energy storage and may be combined with solar photovoltaic, biomass energy or biogas.
Distributed photovoltaic was also supported in the last renewable energy bidding held in Spain in October 2021. Although the government allocated 300 megawatts of distributed photovoltaic, only 6 megawatts were eventually awarded.
Anpier, spanish national association of photovoltaic energy producers, pointed out at that time that it was difficult for small participants to compete with large enterprises that could benefit from economies of scale.
Last October bidding allocated a total of 866 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity and 2,258 megawatts of wind energy.
Although the capacity of 600 megawatts is reserved for solar energy projects that need to be put into use by the end of September 2022, bidders in this part are seriously insufficient, and only 22MW has been allocated.
The bidding in April this year will be Spain third tender after the launch of the clean energy bidding framework in 2020. The bidding framework aims to support the deployment of at least 10GW solar photovoltaic by 2050. The first round of bidding under the mechanism was held in January 2021, with a total allocation of 2,036 megawatts of capacity.
Spain deployed 3.8 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity last year. I believe that Spain may be “the world largest unsubsidized solar market” and maybe Egypt follow by add more capacity soon 2022.