Results of the Russian renewable energy auction conducted by the national energy regulator JSC ATS on September 9, 2021 are out and a total of 774.8 MW (rounded up to 775 MW) solar PV capacity has made the cut.
The capacity of 18 winning solar power projects ranges between 8.47 MW to 60 MW, with 9 facilities selected to come online by December 1, 2023, and the remaining 9 by December 1, 2024. The lowest winning bid for solar PV projects was determined at RUB 4.33 ($0.059) per kWh for 2×60 MW facilities.
Solar Retail LLC was one of the winners, but the largest winner with 10 projects was Unigreen Power LLC which is an independent power producer (IPP) and is part of Unigreen Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Hevel Solar's majority stakeholder Ream Management. In July 2021, Unigreen Energy started construction of 1.3 GW silicon N-type monocrystalline ingots and wafers capacity, along with a 1 GW heterojunction cell fab in Russia (see Russia To Host Gigawatt Level Heterojunction Factory).
According to the Russian Renewable Energy Development Association (RREDA), also referred to as ARVE, JSC ATS received 89 applications for solar PV tender, 10 times higher than the available capacity.
As for the wind energy space, the winning projects were a total of 48 that were selected for a total capacity of 1.85 GW capacity and 3 hydropower facilities of 96 MW capacity.
In August 2021, the Russian Association of Wind Power Industry (RAWI) said the Russian Energy Agency (REA) plans to launch a renewable energy tender for 6.7 GW, including 2.4 GW of solar PV capacity in September 2021, under RES CDA 2.0 support mechanism (see Russia To Launch 6.7 GW Renewable Energy Tender).