Greece announces downsized auction for battery storage in coal regions

The Greek government decided to auction 100 MW less capacity than initially sought and to offer more money to the awarded projects than expected.
Large energy storage system
Image: Canadian Solar

The Greek government published on Friday the details of the nation’s third standalone, grid-scale, front-of-the-meter battery energy storage auction.

The auction seeks 200 MW of battery storage capacity, 100 MW less than initially sought when the subsidy program for this type of energy storage was announced.

The auction needs to be completed by December 15, 2024 and awarded projects need to be connected to the grid by April 30, 2026, according to the announcement issued in the government’s official gazette.

In the following days, Greece’s energy regulator will announce the starting and closing dates for the submission of bids. The projects eligible for bidding are four-hour duration batteries that will be installed in the coal mining region of Western Macedonia and the town of Megalopolis, also a lignite mining town.

Megalopolis will install a maximum 50 MW of battery storage according to the auction scheme, which also allows projects from the European Economic Area (EEA) outside of Greece to participate in the auction, provided there is an electricity interconnection and fully coupled power grids between Greece and the EEA country.

Currently, only Bulgaria meets these requirements. However, Greece’s first and second standalone battery storage auction rounds held under the program did not attract any bids from Bulgaria.

The program initially comprised a first 400 MW auction and a second 300 MW auction concerning projects located anywhere in Greece, as well as a third 300 MW auction targeting battery storage projects located specifically in lignite mining regions. However today, the government decided to seek 100 MW less battery storage capacity in coal regions.

Greece’s energy storage auction program awards contracts-for-difference (CfD) over periods of 10 years. The submitted bids in the third auction will be capped at €145,000/MW per year, up from €115,000/MW per year, which was the bidding cap in the second auction.

Apart from the CfD support, the awarded projects will also be offered a one-time capex subsidy payment. The capex payment in the third auction is set at €200,000/MW, up from €100,000/MW in the second auction.

The government held recently a public consultation seeking ways to expand the development of energy storage beyond the existing auction program. The new energy storage policies are expected to offer contracts to behind-the-meter storage facilities too, although without any subsidy help.

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