In Germany and Poland, co-location solar and energy storage projects are on the rise!
In its European Renewables Co-location Report, Aurora Energy examined the potential for co-location in 12 European countries. In Germany, co-location offers attractive revenue stacking opportunities, low grid charges and mitigates significant risks of renewables competing against each other, while Poland has a strong subsidy environment including long-term capacity market contracts.
The UK is one of the most favorable markets due to favorable regulations, allowing co-location projects to access multiple markets and providing faster grid connection for co-located renewable energy projects. Ireland's integrated electricity market was rated high in the Aurora Energy study, with favorable legislation in this market promoting faster grid connection and mitigating the risk of power outages for renewables.
In terms of policies and regulations, a total of five countries were rated as the most favorable markets in the report. The Polish market offers long-term capacity market revenues and new cable aggregation regulations, while Hungary has introduced mandatory co-location measures for solar PV projects "above a certain size."
Meanwhile, in France, co-located solar PV systems can participate in French CFD tenders, which have historically cleared at high strike prices. The advantages of the Irish integrated electricity market and the UK market are the diversity of available revenue sources for projects and the potential advantages in terms of grid connection and curtailment risks.
Looking ahead, Aurora Energy expects that intermittent renewable energy capacity will grow by 421GW by 2030, which will bring significant risks to renewable energy projects, such as price competition, growth in power curtailment and rising imbalance costs. The German, Greek, Dutch and Irish integrated electricity markets are the most affected, but they can choose to co-site projects to reduce risks.
Recently, PV Tech published an article written by Panos Kefalas, lead expert for Southeast Europe at Aurora Energy Research, exploring the main trends in co-sited projects in the region.
At the 2024 Energy Storage Summit held earlier this year, people held a panel discussion on the business opportunities of solar and energy storage co-sited projects.trina solar panels