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Over 100 GW Bids For Brazil’s A-6 Oct 2019 Auction

Among all the participating technologies in the New Energy Auction A-6 of Brazil, natural gas leads with maximum bids of over 41 GW, followed by solar power. Altogether, it represents more than 100 GW of power generating capacity registered, which EPE says is the largest ever registered capacity for energy auctions.

Anu Bhambhani
  • Brazil's Energy Research Company (EPE) has registered more than 100 GW of capacity for its New Energy Auction to be held on October 17, 2019
  • A total of 1,829 projects have been registered for this auction
  • Natural gas power plants have secured the largest interest in terms of total capacity of 41.7 GW offered to come from 52 projects
  • Solar PV technology has attracted 29.78 GW of capacity proposals from 825 projects
  • 845  in wind power projects add up to a total of 25.158 GW of bids while coal power has only 4 projects registered representing 1.667 GW of capacity

Brazil's New Energy Auction A-6 has received huge interest from investors – 1,829 projects registered by the country's Energy Research Company (EPE) for the October 17, 2019 auction represent total bids of whopping 100.874 GW. EPE says this is the largest ever registered capacity for energy auctions. All projects are to have an installed capacity between 1 MW to 50 MW.

While most projects have been registered for wind power plants totalling 845, the largest capacity of 41.7 GW has been offered for natural gas power plants. Solar PV bids add up to  29.78 GW from 825 projects compared to 25.158 GW wind power bids. Investors have proposed to build 4 coal power plants with at total capacity of 1.667 GW, and 25 biomass projects with at combined capacity of 1.36 GW.

Large-scale hydropower plants (HPP) have garnered interest for 213 MW capacity from 5 projects while 59 small-scale hydropower projects (SHP) totalling 939 MW have been registered in the auction. Hydroelectric power plants (CGH) have attracted only 39 MW of bids as 14 projects.

Details of the projects registered and their location are available on the website of EPE. Like for all A-6 auctions, the completion date is around 6 years away. Commercial operation date for selected projects will be January 1, 2025.

Previously, the A-6 auction was to be held on September 26, 2019 but was postponed to October 17, 2019 to allow more time to interested companies to register their projects (see Brazil Pushes Back A-6 Auction To Oct 2019).

For the New Energy Auction A-4 to be held on June 28, 2019 more than 51 GW of capacity has been registered with solar PV project tariffs capped at BRL 276 ($68.57) per MWh (see BRL 276/MWh Solar Tariff Cap For Brazil's A-4 Auction).