This week’s auction is the second phase in a three-stage programme to expand operating renewable energy capacity in Serbia through government-backed tenders. The first auction, completed last year, saw bids made for 400MW of wind, plus 50MW of solar, so the latest round of auctions has seen interest in the solar sector grow.

“We expect that investors will again show significant interest in this auction and that the entire quota will be used, both for wind energy and for solar energy, and we hope for even more competitive and lower prices, because we expect great competition,” said Dubravka Đedović Handanović, Serbian minister of mining and energy.

“This will bring us closer to achieving the goal foreseen in the three-year incentive plan for renewable energy sources (RES), which envisages 1,300MW of new capacity from RES,” the minister added, referring to the overall capacity targets of the three-stage auction plan.

The call for proposals follows cooperation between the EBRD and the Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy, which received a grant from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), as Serbia looks to leverage government support to accelerate its renewable energy plans. At this week’s Large Scale Solar Central Eastern Europe event, held in Warsaw, Dr Konrad Wojnarowski, undersecretary of state at the Polish Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy, said that a combination of public and private finance would be vital if Eastern Europe is to meet its renewables power targets.

The use of CfDs in both the first two rounds of the Serbian auction echoes other calls made at this week’s summit, where speakers suggested that the use of CfDs could help deliver “acceptable” returns for parties involved in offtake agreements. Serbia plans to dramatically alter its energy mix in the coming years, aiming to add 3.5GW of renewable power capacity by 2030 and meet half of its electricity demand with clean energy sources by the end of the decade.