Registration opens for proposed tender meeting on Tranche 2 green energy projects
By The Star Staff
Accion Group, the independent coordinator of the requests for proposals for Tranche 2 renewable energy projects, opened registration on Monday for a meeting on the proposed tender.
The announcement came in the wake of the U.S. Senate passing legislation containing incentives for renewable energy projects.
Accion Group, which was hired by the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) to advance the transition to renewables, announced that the meeting will take place online on Friday at 1 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.
The Tranche 2 bid would award at least 500 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy resource capacity and at least 250 MW (1,000 MW-hours) of energy storage capacity with an effective duration of four hours. The Tranche 2 request for proposals (RFP) is open to bids related to proposed renewable energy, storage and virtual power plant (VPP) projects as part of long-term power purchase and operation agreements.
Interested bidders must first register on the PREB-IC website to access the registration for the new information meeting.
The RFP process comes after the U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes long-term solar and storage tax incentives, investments in domestic solar manufacturing and other critical provisions that will help decarbonize the electrical grid with significant clean energy deployment.
It comes months after the PREB approved in February some 18 solar PV projects totaling 844.8 as part of the Tranche 1 procurement process for renewable energy and storage resources.
The Senate, meanwhile, passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cut greenhouse gas emissions to about 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, according to The New York Times. It includes a 10-year extension of the solar investment tax credit (ITC) at 30% for both residential and commercial/utility-scale projects, direct pay for nonprofit and governmental entities, a 30% ITC for standalone storage and manufacturing credits for solar components, to name several provisions.
“Today is a monumental day for America’s clean energy progress and global climate leadership,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president & CEO of SEIA in a statement. “With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate, solar and storage companies are one step closer to having the business certainty they need to make the long-term investments that decarbonize the electric grid and create millions of new career opportunities in cities and towns across the country.”
“This legislation is the most transformational investment America has ever made in our climate future, and we are thankful to our members, the clean energy community and every one of our solar champions in Congress for their work to get us to this historic moment,” she added.