Wind corners Italy’s first joint auction

Onshore wind projects cornered Italy’s first joint wind and solar tender, securing a 20-year fixed-price tariff for 495MW out of the 500MW of capacity on offer.

by Heather O'Brian 29 January 2020

Italy's wind projects dominated the joint technology tender, with a new one on the way

State agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE), which ran the auction, announced 18 wind projects totalling 495MW and ranging from 9.4MW to 84MW successfully secured tariffs.

Discounts ranged from 30.54% to just 4.29% on a base auction price of €70/MWh, corresponding to €48.62/MWh to about €67/MWh.

That compares to a price of €66/MWh assigned to all bidders in the last onshore wind auction in 2016 in which 800MW of capacity was assigned.

GSE said only one solar photovoltaic project amounting to just over 5MW was assigned a tariff at a 14.29% discount to the €70.00 base tariff, or about €60/MWh.

Solar project developers were disadvantaged by the fact the tender excluded ground-mounted solar PV projects on agricultural lands.

Although Italian wind investors had to wait years for this auction, GSE is now scheduled to call a new 500MW joint-technology tender on 31 January.