Portugal announces a tender for 60 MW of grid connections for forest biomass power plants

The Portuguese government announced on 13 October 2023 a tender for 60 MW of grid connection capacity for new forest biomass power plants. A single project may apply for a maximum of 10 MW. The tender concerns plants built in the areas most exposed to forest fires, and its basis is a decree approved the day before by the Council of Ministers.

What was decided

According to a report by the portal ECO of 13 October 2023, the Council of Ministers approved on 12 October a decree amending the special and extraordinary regime for new biomass plants in the territories most vulnerable to rural fires. The decree allows the government to conduct a competitive procedure in which grid connection capacity reservation titles with a total size of 60 MW are awarded. The announcement of the tender was expected by the end of November 2023. A map of the territories eligible to take part was published by the Direção-Geral do Território.

Why it matters

In Portugal the legal basis for new forest biomass power plants is Decree-Law No 64/2017. The allocation of grid connection capacity is a key stage here: without a reservation title a plant cannot feed energy into the public grid. The limit of 10 MW per plant means that, if fully used, the pool would be enough for at least six projects, although the article does not say how many are to be built.

The change of direction since 2019

In May 2019, at the EUBCE conference in Lisbon, according to Agroportal the Secretary of State for Energy João Galamba announced a move away from public support for biomass power plants producing only electricity in favour of projects that use thermal energy. According to the Agroportal report, four planned plants with a total capacity of 60 MW with tariff support were abandoned at that time. The same text stated that 11 biomass power plants with a total capacity of 193 MW had been approved. The 2023 tender therefore returns to the subject of biomass power plants, this time with the allocation of grid connection capacity as the main instrument.

What is not known from the announcement

The report of 13 October 2023 did not give the level of a tariff or any other price support mechanism. The information concerns only the right to connect and is an announcement of a tender, not its result.

Reference to Poland

For a Polish reader the difference is clear: in Poland support for biogas plants rests on auctions and reference prices (see reference prices in the 2022 renewable energy auctions), whereas in the tender described here the subject of competition is the right to connect to the grid.