The auction ended with an average price of €0.056 ($0.065)/kWh for the PV technology.
The Croatian Energy Market Operator (HROTE) has announced this end result of the renewable energy auction it launched in April.
The tender was the second round of auctions since Croatia introduced market incentives to support renewable energy projects in mid-2020. It was open to PV, wind and hydro projects and was expected to allocate 607 MW of capacity.
The HROTE allocated 413.5 MW of PV capacity and 4.5 MW of hydropower capacity in the tender, with no wind energy project selected.
The final average price for PV technology was €0.056 ($0.065)/kWh, while the average price for hydropower was €0.158/kWh. The Croatian authorities initially assessed 144 projects with a total capacity of 713 MW for the auction.
The tender took place in two phases. One country granted market incentives for projects with an installed capacity of more than 1 MW each, including 350 MW of solar energy, 60 MW of wind energy and 7.25 MW of hydropower. The maximum reference values for premiums were €0.067/kWh for photovoltaic energy, €0.75/kWh for wind energy and €0.158/kWh for hydropower.
In the other part of the tender procedure, premiums were awarded for solar projects with a capacity ranging from 200 kW to 6 MW, and wind farms with a capacity from 200 kW to 18 MW. The quota was 100 MW for solar energy and 90 MW for wind energy.
In this part of the tender, the market premium was awarded to all types of projects – both wind and solar energy – between 200 kW and 1 MW. Separately, renewable energy SMEs and communities could qualify for PV projects from 200 kW to 6 MW for the subsidies, in addition to wind energy projects from 200 kW to 18 MW. The maximum reference values of the market premiums for solar energy were €0.82/kWh and €0.75/kWh for wind energy.
In 2022, the first auction for large-scale projects in Croatia took place to purchase 638 MW of new capacity. However, only lukewarm interest was shown, with incentives awarded to only 107 MW of projects. The regulator offered a quota of 300 MW for solar power plants, but only four bids were accepted, for a total capacity of 8 MW.
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