Argentina Plans First Renewable Energy Auction In October, For 1 GW

Originally published on CleanTechies.

Argentina has announced details of its first renewable energy tender, scheduled to take place in October of this year.

Rules for the first-ever renewable energy auction in Argentina were recently announced by the government. The auction will allocate 1 GW of capacity, including 300 MW of solar capacity. The project size will vary between 1 to 100 MW.

According to the rules, bids will be accepted by 5 September and projects will be allocated to the developers by 12 October. The developers will have around two years to commission the projects. In addition to solar, wind, biomass and small hydro power technologies will also be represented at the auction.

Earlier, Argentine Minister of Mines and Energy Juan José Aranguren stated that projects are likely to have installed capacities between 10 MW and 40 MW, with wind energy projects likely to dominate the auction.

The government has set a target to increase the share of renewable energy to 20% in the energy mix by 2025. Another target called for 8% renewable energy share in electricity consumption by 2017. As a result, several renewable energy auctions are expected to take place in the country over the next few years. The government is expected to auction 10 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2025.

As per the renewable energy country attractiveness index for May 2016 issued by Ernst & Young, Argentina is ranked 18 among 40 countries. The country was a new entrant into the index as the government has announced several financial incentives for the renewable energy sector.

Reprinted with permission.