Argentina’s first renewable energy tender under the new RenovAr program has attracted more than 2,834 megawatts (MW) worth of solar energy project capacity bids, according to a recent public announcement from the country’s Ministry of Energy.
This is despite the fact that the solar energy quota for the tender is just 300 MW. (To be clear here, since some people apparently get confused about this, these figures relate to nameplate project capacities.)
The 58 solar photovoltaic (PV) project bids in question relate to locations spread throughout 12 Argentinian provinces — Buenos Aires, Salta, Mendoza, San Juan, San Luis, Jujuy, Catamarca, Chaco, Neuquén, La Pampa, and Córdoba.
In addition to solar energy projects, the tender included bids for wind energy projects, small hydroelectric projects, biomass projects, and biogas projects. A grand total of 1,000 MW of new renewable energy capacity is expected to be developed as a result of the tender — with around $1.5 billion to $2 billion being the expected figure as far as total direct investment goes.
Project bids competing for this 1,000 MW of tender capacity totaled 6,366 MW — quite a lot of interest, in other words. Of this 6,366 MW of bid capacity, 3,468 MW relates to wind energy projects (49 project bids), a bit more than the still impressive 2,834 MW solar bids.
The tender allocation for wind energy, though, is twice as large, with 600 MW being the allocation figure. The allocation figures for the other generation modalities are: 65 MW for biomass, 20 MW for small-scale hydroelectric, and 15 MW for biogas.
As a reminder, the Argentinian government is currently aiming for renewable energy generation to compose roughly 8% of the country’s total energy mix by 2017.
