Hevel and Shell among winners in Kazakh solar auction

Solar power station. Featured Image: worradirek/Shutterstock.com

October 19 (Renewables Now) - Three different companies, including units of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (AMS:RDSA) and Russian group Hevel, have won a total of 170 MW in a solar auction in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan Electricity and Power Market Operator, also known as JSC KOREM, said on Thursday that the auction has attracted 28 applications for a total volume of 1,270.2 MW from 20 companies, each proposing projects ranging in size from 10.2 MW to 100 MW.

The lowest bid was KZT 18.6 (USD 0.051/EUR 0.044) per kWh and the highest was KZT 32/kWh. More details are available in the table below.

Name	Awarded capacity	Bid price (in KZT)
JSC Hydroenergy company	50 MW	18.6/kWh
Avelar Solar Technology LLC	20 MW	18.8/kWh
Avelar Solar Technology LLC	50 MW	22.5/kWh
Shell Kazakhstan BV Branch	50 MW	22.9/kWh

Avelar Solar is a subsidiary of Russia’s Hevel Group, which confirmed separately that it won a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for the sale of power from a 70-MW solar park in southern Kazakhstan. The group expects to commission the facility in 2019-2020.

The tender is part of a series of auctions taking place from October 3 to October 18 as the government aims to contract 1 GW of renewable power in 2018. The targeted capacity is 290 MW of solar, 620 MW of wind, 75 MW of hydropower and 15 MW of biopower. Also this month, KOREM awarded 250 MW of wind power and 61.5 MW of hydropower.

(KZT 100 = USD 0.273/EUR 0.238)

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