The European Commission (EC) has allocated €52 million (US$59.1 million) to nine renewable energy projects as part of its cross-border auction process.
The nine projects will be deployed in Finland and Estonia and represent 445.65MW of new energy capacity.
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The bulk of the capacity added via the Renewable Energy Financing Mechanism (RENEWFM) is in solar PV projects in Finland. Seven sites were awarded under the scheme, ranging between 10MWp and 80MWp. A number of them are being built to “repurpose” former gravel and peat extraction sites across Finland.
Two onshore wind projects were also awarded in Estonia, with 31MW and 39MW generation capacity each.
All of the projects are expected to be commissioned over the course of 2027 and 2028.
The EC launched the RENEWFM scheme in 2020 and has since issued two cross-border tenders under its banner, the first in 2023 and the second in 2024. The most recent announcement fulfilled almost all of the €52.4 million that was made available for investment.
The RENEWFM scheme involves “contributing” and “hosting” countries; the former finances the projects and receives 80% of the renewable energy credit attribution, while the actual projects and power capacity are deployed in the latter.
In both tenders so far, Luxembourg has acted as the contributing state, and Finland has acted as the host. Estonia was added in the second tender.
At the time of the second tender, the EC said the RENEWFM scheme is designed to “encourage a greater and more efficient uptake of renewable energy sources across the EU.”
In principle, wealthy countries with few land resources, like Luxembourg, can enable greater decarbonisation across the continent by trading investment for renewable energy credits and enabling deployments in countries with more available land.
PV Tech Premium looked into the scheme following the announcement of the first tender. Jonathan Bonadio, senior policy advisor at solar trade body SolarPower Europe, said that cross-border tenders could potentially “lead to lower prices and stimulate the European market for solar.”
