April 18th, 2024
BlueFloat Energy and Greenvolt Group partnership took at an active part in yesterday’s Oceanic Renewables Summit organized by APREN – Associação Portuguesa de Energias Renováveis in Lisbon. Nailia Dindarova, Chief Market Development Officer at BlueFloat Energy, shared the partnership’s perspectives on the regulatory framework for offshore wind currently under development in Portugal during the panel entitled “Designing the ideal auction model for Portugal.”
Alongside the representatives of the Portuguese government and other developers, Nailia addressed crucial structural elements of the auction terms and conditions.
In her intervention, she advocated for a two-phase model in Portugal with the view of ensuring that projects that are awarded a CfD contact in the second phase of the tender are properly derisked and matured for the future delivery. Granting developers seabed rights on an exclusive basis in the first phase would provide them with sufficient comfort to undertake the expensive surveys and carry out consenting activities, which would inform the subsequent CfD bids.
Nailia also stressed the importance of designing a CfD tender that is fit-for-purpose in terms of sophisticated indexation mechanism that would ensure that projects are economically viable, sustainable and bankable.
Finally, we encouraged the Portuguese policy makers to ensure that the prequalification criteria are fair, reasonable, and proportionate to ensure a highly competitive process for the benefit of ensuring the optimum outcome from the taxpayers’ perspective. In her concluding remarks she urged the new government in Portugal to embrace this opportunity and build on the momentum in the country to unlock the deployment of offshore wind by launching the auction this year.
