RESS 4 is the fourth auction held under the Irish Government's Renewable Electricity Support Scheme.
See our recap of RESS here.
Provisional Results
EirGrid has now published the provisional results of the RESS 4 auction.
Statistics to note arising from the provisional results, include:
1. A total of 56 projects applied to participate in the RESS 4 qualification process. Of these applications, 43 projects qualified, three projects did not qualify and ten projects formally withdrew from the process.
2. The average strike price for the provisionally successful applicants across all projects was €96.85/MWh. The average strike price for solar projects was €104.76/MWh and for wind projects was €90.47/MWh.
3. Of the qualifying projects, 27 bids have been provisionally designated as successful, consisting of 23 solar projects (with a total capacity of 959.84MW) and 4 onshore wind projects (with a total capacity of 373.8MW).
For comparison, under the RESS 3 auction which took place in 2023 contracts were offered to 148MW of wind farm projects and 498MW of solar developments. The average strike price across all projects under RESS 3 was €100.47/MWh.
The list of provisionally successful applicants can be viewed here.
Next Steps
The following are the next steps in the RESS 4 auction process:
1. Disgruntled applicants have two days to submit a Notice of Dissatisfaction to the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications if they feel EirGrid, the TSO, has not applied the RESS 4 terms and conditions correctly.
2. EirGrid will submit the Provisional Auction Results to the Minister for approval.
3. The Minister will then consider the Provisional Auction Results, the Auction Monitor report, and any Notices of Dissatisfaction submitted by qualified applicants in respect of a Provisional Auction Result.
4. The Final Auction Results will be issued on 25 September.
5. A notice of award is to be issued to each successful project on 2 October 2024.
Contributed by Colm Booth and David O'Shea.
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