Bulgaria is launching a public consultation into a grant auction scheme for renewable energy projects and up to 350MW of energy storage facilities.
It is the country’s first clean energy auction, and will also support proposed renewable generation capacity of 570MW for wind and solar for the first tender.
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According to an announcement made by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Energy, the tender will also include 150MW of storage capacity. The main objective of the tender round is to encourage contributions to increase the share of clean energy in Bulgaria’s energy mix on the way to climate neutrality. The government plans to build 1.4GW of new renewable capacity, alongside 350MW of energy storage capacity, in the coming years.
The storage facilities included in the tender are expected to have a minimum capacity of 30% of the total installed power generation capacity, and not less than 1MW. Also, the storage facilities’ maximum capacity should not be higher than 50% of the total installed power capacity.
The amount of the total available funding is BGN265.4 million (US$143.3 million) and up to 50% of the eligible costs will be financed, and the ministry added that the grant funding will be in the form of investment aid for the storage facilities. The public consultation will be open until 6 November.
The funding will come from the European Union and Bulgaria is the latest country in and around the Central and Eastern Europe region to utilise the bloc’s funds to kickstart large-scale energy storage. Others reported on this year by Energy-Storage.news include Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia