Government launches €140 million auction for renewable gas projects
Portugal’s Ministry of Energy and the Environment has announced today that it will conduct an auction for renewable gas production contracts, with a government allocation of €140 million.
It will be open for green hydrogen and bio-methane projects. At the same time it should soon conclude the first guidelines for an offshore wind auction before the summer.
The Minister of Energy and the Environment, Maria da Graça Carvalho said: “Today we are launching a renewable gasses auction (tenders for production contracts) to which we will inject €140 million over a period of 10 years, financed by the Environmental Fund. This amount should compensate investors for price fluctuations.”
Regarding the offshore wind energy auction, which had been planned by the previous government, and has been passed to the new government, the minister said that the “first results” and “some guidelines” for the auction would be shared before the summer.
The Portuguese government’s plans for offshore wind energy production is contained in its National Energy and Climate Plan 2030 (PNEC 2030), approved by a Council of Ministers Resolution in 2020.
The ambition of this plan was reinforced in the first version of the revision of the PNEC 2030, presented on 30 June 2023, in which a target of 2 GW was set for ocean-going wind technology and the government assumed the ambition of allocating a capacity of 10 GW by 2030, through competitive tenders.
Some 50 developers have already shown an interest to build offshore wind farms off the coast of Portugal with three areas pinpointed for the first tenders located offshore at Viana do Castelo (1GW), Leixões (€500 MW), and Figueira da Foz (2 GW).
