SOLAR TENDERS: WEEKLY UPDATES
This is a weekly overview on solar tender information that TaiyangNews has published as part of stories on its website over the course of the past week. For more information on a tender listed below, click on the source to directly access the tender documents (if available).
EUROPE TENDERS
Romania Announces €815 Million Support For Renewables: The Ministry of Energy in Romania has revealed plans to launch 2 public solicitation calls for renewable energy on March 1, 2024, including one for self-consumption facilities. It has allocated a total budget of €815 million to be offered as grants to the winners.?
State financial support of up to €20,000 million/beneficiary will be provided from the European Union’s (EU) Modernization Fund.?
Eligible technologies for these rounds are wind, solar and hydro power with one of the calls reserved for the production of green energy for self-consumption of at least 70% of the energy generated.?
Winning projects will need to come online within 3 years of signing the financing contract but not later than December 31, 2029. Eligible beneficiaries for both the rounds will be micro-enterprises, small or medium enterprises as well as large companies. The selection criterion will be price in €/MW.?
The total budget will be distributed among the 2 calls in the following manner:??
On January 18, 2024, the ministry launched applicant guides for the 2 rounds for public consultation. Comments to these will be incorporated, evaluated and published in the 2nd half of February to formally open the call on March 1, 2024.??
“All these investments mean jobs, competitiveness for the Romanian private sector and lower energy bills for all Romanians, in the long term.?We will continue this effort at a sustained pace, because I assumed from the beginning of my mandate the acceleration of all investment programs and the transformation of Romania into an energy hub for the entire region,” said Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja.??
The minister also said Romania installed 496 MW of new solar in 2023 (see Romania Installed 624 MW New Electricity Capacity In 2023 ).?
Earlier in August 2023, the ministry had released an information note for its maiden contracts for difference (CfD) auction round (see Romania Releases CfD Auction Schedule For 5 GW ). Now it plans to auction a total of 5 GW capacity in 2 rounds scheduled for 2024 and 2025.?
Albania Launches 300 MW Solar PV Auction: Albania’s Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku has announced the launch of a 300 MW solar PV tender. The country has capped tariffs for the auction at €59.97 ($65.23)/MWh.
Open to both local and international companies, this auction has been launched in response to increasing interest in renewable energy sources, said the minister in a press conference where she announced the auction.
Interested companies can submit their technical and financial bids till May 17, 2024. The winners of the 15-year power supply contract will be announced on July 10, 2024. The minister promised the deadlines won’t be postponed for this round.
Balluku described the auction as the one where the state identifies the amount of energy required which it will also purchase, and the responsibility to arrange land and other aspects will lie with the developers. This is opposed to the previous rounds where the state provided land for such projects.
The video of the press conference where Balluku announced the auction is available on the ministry’s Facebook account . Her speech in Albanian is available on the ministry’s website .
Albania’s largest solar power plant to date is 140 MW Karavasta project commissioned by France’s Voltalia in December 2023.
US TENDERS
US Offers To Open Up 22 Million Acres For Large-Scale Solar Plants Near Transmission Lines: The US Department of the Interior has identified 22 million acres of public land to facilitate installation of more solar power plants in 11 states in the western part of the country. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages public lands in the country, has also announced next steps on 1.7 GW of potential solar and 1.3 GW of battery storage capacity.?
In a draft analysis of the updated Utility-Scale Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) or the 2012 Western Solar Plan, the department has identified suitable land with high solar potential and low resources conflicts, close to transmission infrastructure.?
This would make way for this additional land in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, with the addition of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming to the list.?
It would streamline BLM’s framework for siting solar energy projects to support current and future national clean energy goals, long-term energy security, climate resilience, and improved conservation outcomes, it added.?
“The Interior Department’s work to responsibly and quickly develop renewable energy projects is crucial to achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 – and this updated solar roadmap will help us get there in more states and on more lands across the West,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis.?
The update has been carried out for $4.3 million from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).?
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Ben Norris welcomed the proposal saying, “Under the current policy, there are at least 80 million acres of federal lands open to oil and gas development, which is 100 times the amount of public land available for solar. BLM’s proposal is a big step in the right direction and recognizes the key role solar plays in our energy?economy.”?
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The draft will be open for written comments from stakeholders till April 18, 2024. Responses will lead to a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision. Details are available on BLM’s website .??
PROPOSAL FOR NEW PROJECTS?
The BLM has also proposed 4 new solar projects in Nevada with a draft environmental impact statement for the 700 MW Libra Solar Project in Mineral and Lyon counties, the 400 MW Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project with a 700 MW battery energy storage system (BESS), and the 200 MW Dry Lake East Energy Center Solar Project with a 400 MW BESS facility (see BLM Seeks Views On Large Scale Solar & Storage Project ).??
It has also announced a notice of intent for the 200 MW Dodge Flat II Solar Project in Nevada’s Washoe county.?
The BLM will announce more solar projects in the coming days in California and Arizona states.??
So far, under the Biden-Harris administration, BLM counts having approved 47 clean energy projects and permitted 11.236 GW of new wind, solar and geothermal energy on public lands.?
The public lands manager is currently processing 67 utility-scale onshore clean energy projects in the Western US, comprising solar, wind and geothermal projects, representing over 37 GW of renewable energy capacity. Additionally, it is undertaking a preliminary review of more than 195 applications for the development of solar and wind power plants and 97 applications for solar and wind energy site area testing.?
US DOE Launches Call For Solar PV & CSP Projects: The US Department of Energy (DOE) has invited applications from early-career researchers exploring solar PV and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) ideas that are riskier than research ideas based on established technologies. The call has been launched under the Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) 2024 funding opportunity.?
The Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) is looking for seedling R&D projects that focus on innovative and novel ideas in the said technologies. Eligibility to be considered includes never having applied or been selected for a SETO project award.?
To win SIPS 2024 funding, research work should focus on new and emerging areas of PV research that can produce significant results within the 1st year of performance. If these are successful, should lay the foundation for continued research.?
Such projects should aim to significantly lower costs and improve the power conversion efficiency, fielded energy output, reuse and recycling of system components, service lifetime and manufacturability of PV technologies.?
SETO expects to select 7 to 12 winning projects to award $250,000 each for PV technology. A similar number of projects are likely to win $400,000 each for the CSP topic.?
The department said this funding round is aimed at accelerating innovative R&D projects towards large-scale development and deployment of solar technologies to support an equitable transition to a decarbonized electricity system by 2035, and decarbonized energy sector by 2050.??
The funding opportunity was announced on January 18, 2024. It states March 6, 2024 as the last date to submit full applications. Winning projects will be awarded in Summer 2024. The details are available on Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) website .?
Winners of SIPS 2023 funding?
The DOE also announced the winning projects of the SIPS 2023 funding round, selecting 24 projects to award a total of $7.8 million, comprising 9 each for CSP and PV technologies.?
Next-generation perovskite solar technology seems to be a popular subject of research for several winners of this round. One of the winners, Colorado School of Mines, is exploring low-temperature printing for next-generation perovskite tandem solar cells with little to no silver content.?
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has won for its 2 projects. The first is the development of lower cost, higher efficiency silicon boules via a combined chemical vapor deposition float zone process to produce higher efficiency wafers. The other project aims to quantify the impact of PV system repowering and module reuse on PV project economics, sustainability and equity.?
The University of California, Davis has been selected to research on mitigating the performance degradation of silicon TOPCon cells by analyzing their structural and electronic dynamics from femtoseconds to gigaseconds.?
A list of winning projects of SIPS 2023 funding are available on the DOE’s website .??
Joint All-Source Request For Proposals By US Utilities: Tucson Electric Power Company (TEP) and UniSource Energy Services (UNSE) have jointly launched a competitive solicitation round for up to 625 MW of renewable energy and energy efficiency resources along with up to 825 MW of firm capacity.
New wind and solar power generation systems can be a part of the 625 MW call, including demand response programs that reduce usage during periods of high demand.
The firm capacity of 825 MW includes energy storage systems with at least 4 hours of continuous energy every day during summers. This also could include demand response programs that provide incentives to customers who curtail energy usage at specific times of the day and year when usage is typically highest, according to the call.
Eligible projects under this all-source request for proposals (ASRFP) round need to come online as soon as May 1, 2026, but not later than May 1, 2027.
It is aimed at supporting the 2023 Integrated Resource Plans (IRP) of the 2 US utilities to meet increasing energy demand for the next 15 years.
Under its IRP 2023, Tucson-based TEP seeks to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% from 2005 levels by 2035 and increase the share of natural gas and energy storage in the portfolio.
UNSE, on the other hand, caters to customers in Mohave and Santa Cruz counties. It aims to transition to a mix of owned generating assets and long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) for natural gas, energy storage and renewables.
The duo launched the ASRFP in December 2023, setting March 8, 2024 as the last date for submissions. Details of the auction process are available on a dedicated website .