The latest round of renewable energy tenders in Greece saw wind outshine solar, the former almost hitting its 481.45 MW generation capacity target while solar fell well short of the hoped-for 482 MW, with only 142 MW allocated.
Solar projects up to 20 MW in scale were eligible for Monday’s clean energy tender but the requirement to hold electricity generation and grid connection licenses again ensured the technology was under-represented. By contrast, some 472 MW of wind farms were allocated in an exercise which attracted bids for 748 MW of capacity in projects which could be up to 50 MW in scale.
The tender did, however, produce a new record low price for Greek solar power of €0.04584/kWh, for two 10 MW projects planned in Igoumenitsa, northwestern Greece. That tariff undershot the previous mark of €0.04911, agreed for a 200 MW facility under development in the mining region of Ptolemaida.
The authorities will hope the introduction of a new, digital licensing regime – which will apply to the next tender – will drive up the number of solar projects eligible to participate. The incumbent permitting regime at one point led to a 6 GW backlog of licensing applications and an estimated 18-month waiting time for generation licenses.
Winning projects
Germany’s ABO Wind, despite its name, was the biggest winner in the PV auction, scooping up more than a third of the allocated capacity across five projects in Igoumenitsa, each of around 10 MW capacity. The German renewables developer was behind the new record low solar price, which it bid for two of the projects awarded, alongside tariffs of €0.04586, €0.04587 and €0.04883/kWh.
EDF-owned Heliothema secured two 11.9 MW solar farms in Thiva, central Greece, for €0.053/kWh, and domestic company Metka-Egnatia, part of the Mytilineos Group, landed four projects with a total capacity of around 11 MW. Of the 39 successful solar project bids, the highest power tariff was €0.06245/kWh for an average €0.04981. The 15 successful wind project bids had energy prices ranging from €0.05386 to €0.0577.
