Panama’s national secretary of energy has launched its first bidding auction exclusively for renewables and energy storage.
The bidding process – held by the national secretary of energy and state-owned electricity transmission company, Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica SA (ETESA) – is seeking 500MW of capacity and will be held in the second quarter of 2024. Publication for the application will be released in February of this year.
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Winning bidders will need to have projects operational by 1 September 2026, for existing renewable projects and new solar PV plants.
Offtake agreements will be done depending on three different schemes based on power for renewables (new or existing) backed up with energy storage, energy from new or existing renewable projects, or firm power coupled with energy.
Up to 40% of the capacity for the energy line could be allocated for existing projects, while both power and firm power capacity would have up to 65% for existing projects. These would be managed separately from new renewable projects.
New projects will have a 20-year power purchase agreement, while existing ones will have a duration of up to 10 years.
The inclusion of energy storage is a first in the Central America region, according to the Panama government, and would contribute to its goal of contributing 5% of the total demand capacity from the country by 2030 with energy storage.
Among the Central American states, Panama has become an attractive market for investors due to the country’s PV incentives put in place by the government as recently covered on PV Tech Premium.
The government’s resolution can be accessed here (in Spanish).