Following the news that Portugal has post-poned its 700MW auction until the market is less turbulent;

Somik Das, Power Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“In a major blow to the nation, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused more than 4,200 deaths, which has made the market unpredictable.

“That the auction has been delayed without a timeframe indicates the market situation, and it is unlikely that the the auction will be conducted until the pandemic is brought under control.

“The fate of the auction depends on investor interest and confidence, which will largely depend on the successful implementation of projects subscribed under last year’s auctions. With a proper plan of action in place, the nation may manage to abide by the 2030 targets it had initially set.

“In 2019, the first round of auction was conducted where the tendered capacity was about 1.4 gigawatt (GW), in response to which bids worth 10GW were received from developers. The strike price under the fixed tariff auction was expected to be around €35-36/MWh based on the number of bids that were received in the previous auction conducted last year, and the interest it generated. However, due to the pandemic, the response bids, from developers, along with the strike price, is expected to get negatively affected.”