Portugal’s second solar PV tender sets new world record low price

Portuguese financial newspaper Expresso reported Monday that the country’s second solar PV tender for 700MW had made history, with “another world record for the lowest price for photovoltaic energy,” with two lots reportedly closed with contracts equivalent to $US13 a megawatt hour.

Portugal’s second solar energy tender was scheduled for August 24 and 25, but anticipation has been high regardless, due in part to comments made by Portugal’s environment minister, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, earlier this month.

According to Fernandes, the solar tender was already ten times oversubscribed. Fernandes also explained that of the ten lots to be tendered, nine have an energy storage element built in.

Without clarifying where their information came from, Portuguese financial newspaper Expresso revealed on Tuesday that the tender had yielded record-low contracts. The majority of Expresso’s information is hidden behind a paywall, but the most important information was available.

According to the report, there were two tender lots which closed with contracts equivalent to a price of €11.2/MWh ($US13/MWh, or  $A18/MWh).

Further, Expresso reported that “The first five lots auctioned all beat the reference price that was the previous world record for solar plants, which had been registered in April this year in Abu Dhabi” which was the record bid of AED0.0497/kWh ($US13.533/MWh, $A20/MWh) submitted by French energy group EDF and China’s JinkoPower in an April tender, which was confirmed in July.

Portugal’s second solar energy tender is, therefore, following in the record-setting footsteps of the country’s first solar tender, held almost a year ago to the date, in which a 150MW solar project was awarded at a (then) record low price of €14.7/MWh.

As it stands, Portugal’s government agency operating the tender has not published any firm details, but if Expresso’s inside information bears out to be true, it is continued proof of solar’s increasing dominance in the global energy system.