Brazil reduced the amount of wind energy projects competing to sell electricity in an auction this month after tightening eligibility requirements to avoid delays.
Wind power projects with 9,000 megawatts of combined capacity will participate in the auction, about 24 percent less than in last year’s bid, national energy agency Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica said on its website.
The government required wind-farm developers competing this year to build projects near existing substations to avoid delays erecting power lines, Maria Gabriela da Rocha Oliveira, a Sao Paulo-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said today in a telephone interview.
“If you don’t have access to a substation this year, you’re not eligible,” Oliveira said.
The so-called “reserve” auction is planned for Aug. 23 and will see wind developers compete for 20-year contracts to supply electricity, according to the statement. Companies will bid down from an initial price of 117 reais ($50.50) a megawatt hour. The wind farms must start producing power by Sept. 1 2015.