Brazil's A-3 tender has awarded 868 MW of wind-power contracts at an average cost of R$124.43 ($54.5) per megawatt-hour.
Some 10.4GW of capacity registered to compete for power purchase agreements with a ceiling price of R$126 per MWh. Most schemes achieved prices in the region of R$123 while one 30MW wind site in Bahía state stooped to R$118.
Brazil sold rights on Monday to build 39 new wind farms in the country, which will require an estimated 3.4 billion Brazilian reais ($1.5 billion) in investment, but failed to sell solar power projects as prices remain too high to find buyers.
Monday's so-called A-3 auction--in which winners have three years to bring projects online--was the first to include solar energy projects. More than 30 photovoltaic solar projects, totaling 813 megawatts of generating capacity, were registered to take part in the auction.
But with prices for solar power much higher than for other renewable sources such as wind power and biomass, the auction failed to hire any solar projects.
The ceiling price for power to be sold at Monday's auction was BRL126 per megawatt-hour. Contracts are awarded to bidders that offer the biggest discount from that price. With solar power currently costing more than BRL200 per megawatt-hour in Brazil, it was widely expected that solar projects wouldn't make the cut during this auction.
During the auction, government agencies match up companies wanting to sell energy with distributors that need to buy energy.
Nineteen of the projects will be built in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The remaining 20 projects will be built in the country's northeast, spread out over the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceara and Piaui. The wind projects hired on Monday have a total generating capacity of 897 megawatts.
This week's auction also required bidders to take responsibility for any delays in linking the power plants to transmission networks.
Wind energy in Brazil
- End 1997: 3 MW
- End 1998: 17 MW (+466.7 %)
- End 1999: 19 MW (+11.8 %)
- End 2000: 22 MW (+15.8 %)
- End 2001: 24 MW (+9.1 %)
- End 2002: 22 MW (-8.3 %)
- End 2003: 24 MW (+9.1 %)
- End 2004: 24 MW (- %)
- End 2005: 29 MW (+20.9 %)
- End 2006: 237 MW (+717.3 %)
- End 2007: 247 MW (+4.3 %)
- End 2008: 339 MW (+37.3 %)
- End 2009: 606 MW (+78.8 %)
- End 2010: 931 MW (+53.7 %)
- End 2011: 1,429 MW (+53.5 %)
- End 2012: 2,508 MW (+75.6 %)