JSC Kazakhstan Electricity and Power Market Operator (JSC KOREM) has revealed that the winner of the auction for a 50 MW solar power project in Kazakhstan’s Otyrar district is Italian oil and gas producer Eni.
The group’s LLP Arm Wind unit offered the lowest price (not including VAT) of KZT 12.49 ($0.032)/kWh. “The ceiling auction price – KZT 29/kWh (excluding VAT) during the trading session decreased by 2.3 times,” JSC KOREM said.
All of the participating offers submitted by 95 developers had a combined PV capacity of 350 MW.
The 50 MW project is a joint initiative under the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in cooperation with the UN Development Program. Eni is already active in the Kazakh energy market as a joint operator of the Karachaganak field. It is also an equity partner in various projects in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, including the giant Kashagan field
The auction has delivered a price which is lower by at least a third than those seen in the country’s first renewable energy auction in October 2018, when the final prices of the four selected PV projects, totaling 170 MW, ranged from KZT 18.6 to KZT 18.6.
In another auction that was finalized in September, JSC KOREM selected a 10 MW PV project submitted by Russian developer Solnechnaya sistema LLP, which offered a price of KZT 9.9/kWh, and a 26 MW solar project presented by KazSolar 50 LLP, which submitted a bid of KZT 16.97/kWh. The Solnechnaya sistema LLP project will be built near the country’s Aral district, while the KazSolar 50 LLP plant will be built in the Shet district.
The procurement exercises are part of a series under which the Kazakh government aims to assign 1 GW of renewables capacity, of which 290 MW will be solar.
Several more projects are being built outside the country’s auction scheme, including a 128 MW solar project by Total Eren and a 50 MW project by Suntech, among others. In January, German developer Goldbeck Solar said it had finished a 100 MW solar project near the town of Saran. That project also operates under a 15-year PPA, at a price of KZT34.61/kWh ($0.091).
