We’ve been reporting on record-low solar price bids from the US Southwest and the Middle East for the past few years, which have been stunners, as well as extremely low prices in India, Brazil, Chile, Zambia, China, and elsewhere. However, this new one is an amazing price given Denmark’s nascent solar market and extremely northerly location.
The auction brought in an average winning bid price of 38 Danish øre per kWh (5.4¢/kWh).
Danish PV auction produces price of just 1.45p/kWh (1.8c US) above wholesale price of power. Yes, you read it right – sunny old Denmark.
— Chris Goodall (@ChrisGoodall2) December 13, 2016
As Chris Goodall and the Danish Energy Agency point out (in other units), that’s just 1.8¢/kWh above wholesale electricity prices. (Remember that Denmark is dominated by extremely low-cost wind energy — reaching 140% of power demand at times — which makes for low wholesale electricity prices.)
“The winning tenders in the pilot tender of aid for solar PV conducted by the Danish Energy Agency were for a premium of only 12.89 Danish øre per kWh,” the Danish Energy Agency wrote. “This result testifies that electricity from solar PV in Denmark can now compete with the cheapest sources of renewable energy.”
5.4¢/kWh is on the low end of Lazard’s estimated levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for solar power plants. It’s not far below it like recent bids in the Middle East — but this is Denmark! If an immature solar market in a Scandinavian country can see an average solar price of 5.4¢/kWh — which beats the LCOE from every other new power plant option except wind — that’s a significant milestone.
Some more facts from the tender via the Danish Energy Agency:
- 36 tenders with 79.45 MW total capacity bid
- Winning tenders = 21.6 MW total capacity
- “The total volume of aid is thus expected to be approximately 2.8 million DKK annually once the installations have been installed, which is significantly below the 8 million DKK annually which were the expectation when the legal basis for the tender was adopted.”
- “The three companies, who each submitted tenders regarding three installations of 2.4 MW, are P&B Solpark Danmark 8 K/S, P&B Solpark Danmark 9 K/S and P&B Solpark Danmark 11 K/S.”
h/t Kyle Field
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