Floating photovoltaic power plants in Portugal

published on 9 December 2021 | reading time approx. 2 minutes

On 16 November 2021, Decree Law 98/2021 was published, which aims to unify the procedure for the production of electricity by photovoltaic centers installed on reservoirs.
 

 
The Decree-Law unifies the competitive procedures for the awarding of the title of reserve injection capacity in the RESP for electricity from solar energy conversion by floating photovoltaic electro production centers to be installed in reservoirs and the titles of private use of resources in the public waterways domain necessary for this purpose are subject to a single competitive procedure in accordance with the legislation and management plans applicable to these resources in the public waterways domain.
 
The goal is, through this new procedure, to ensure priority to projects with lower costs and greater guarantees of execution.
 
The members of the government responsible for the areas of energy and the environment will be in charge of determining the opening of the competitive bidding procedure and approving the respective pieces, while the role of contracting entities will fall to the entities competent for the attribution of titles of private use of the resources of the public hydric domain and to the General Direction of energy and geology, under the terms to be defined in the pieces of the procedure.
 
The issuance of titles occurs after project approval or, if the projects are subject to the environmental impact procedure or environmental incidence analysis procedure, after the issuance of the respective favorable or conditionally favorable decisions.
 
Finally, this diploma, in its sole annex, fixes the maximum implementation areas in hectares, the voltage level (kv), the estimated connection power (MVA) and the connection network (national distribution network or national transmission network) depending on the reservoir in question.