South Korea kicks off 2 GW PV tender

Selected projects will be awarded a fixed rate under a 20-year contract under the country’s renewable energy certificate (REC) scheme and will sell electricity to local power distributors.

June 14, 2022 Emiliano Bellini

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, in Sejong City.

Image: Minseong Kim/Wikimedia Commons

From pv magazine Global

The South Korean Energy Agency has launched the first of the two PV tenders planned for this year.

In the procurement exercise, the agency intends to allocate 2,000 MW across four project categories: installations of less than 100 kW; projects ranging in size from 100 to 500 kW; PV arrays with a capacity between 500 kW and 3 MW; and solar plants with an installed power of over 3 MW.

Selected projects will be awarded a fixed rate under a 20-year contract under the country’s renewable energy certificate (REC) scheme and will sell electricity to local power distributors. Projects relying on solar PV modules with a low carbon footprint will be prioritised.

Interested developers will have time until July 1 to submit their bids. The tender’s final results are expected to be announced on Aug. 19 and the winning bidders should be awarded a final contract in October.

In the two tenders held in 2021, the KEA allocated 2 GW and 2.2 GW, respectively, while in 2020 it contracted 1.2 GW and 1.4 GW. In 2017, 2018, and 2019 total allocated capacity was 600 MW, 600 MW, and 850 MW, respectively. Overall, South Korea‘s authorities should tender 4 GW of solar this year.

The country reached an installed solar power capacity of around 22 GW as of the end of December 2021. The newly installed PV capacity for 2021 was around 4.4 GW.

South Korea currently plans to install 30.8 GW of solar by 2030.

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