RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, plans to propose stricter participation requirements for the new RES capacity auctions to be staged over the next three years, beginning this year, the objective being to increase the likelihood of successful bidders actualizing projects.

The authority has proposed setting a minimum registration fee for RES auction participants of 1,000 euros, to be calculated at a rate of 150 euros per MW. According the RAE proposals, participants will also need to provide letters of guarantee representing 1 percent of investment totals. If applied, this term would cost participants 1,000 euros for a 100-kw PV investment and 125,000 euros for a 10-MW wind energy park.

RAE is also considering requiring bidders to provide an additional goodwill letter of guarantee worth 4 percent of the total investment. This would work out to 4,000 euros for a 100-kw PV facility and 600,000 euros for a 10-MW wind energy park.

Local authorities are now believed to be having second thoughts about another strict RES auction term proposed that would require investors to submit bids whose total exceeds total capacities on offer by at least 80 percent if planned capacity amounts are to be offered. This percentage figure, proposed with the aim of intensifying bidding, could be reduced.

As the proposal currently stands, a RES auction offering 100 MW would need to attract bids totaling at least 180 MW if this capacity is to be offered.

The energy ministry plans to stage two RES capacity auctions within the first six months of 2018. They are expected to offer 300 MW for wind energy installations and 300 MW for photovoltaic capacity. The bids for these two capacities would each need to total 540 MW, according to the aforementioned terms.