Sweden and Spain have the cheapest average corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) prices in Europe for renewable electricity, a new survey by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has revealed.
The ‘1H 2020 European Corporate PPA Price Survey’ found the lowest price levels for onshore wind corporate PPAs in Europe are available in Sweden at €30.50/megawatt hour (MWh).
Corporate PPAs for solar power are cheapest in Spain at €35.30/MWh, but the technology is generally more expensive across the region than wind, the study found.
BNEF launched the survey to provide “pricing transparency and simplify the complexity around corporate PPAs”, to help buyers to understand this “fast-growing” market.
BNEF analyst and study author Helen Dewhurst said: “The very wide range of results was particularly interesting, with the gap between the cheapest PPA you might sign in Sweden and the most expensive PPA in the UK being over €30/MWh.”
The study looks at the minimum-maximum price range for the most common PPA scenario – a ‘base case’ – for both solar and wind across nine markets.
The survey then shows how PPA prices change depending on three main adjustment factors of capacity, term length and contract structure.
BNEF stated: “PPA prices are not static and depend on many variables, so there is “never just no one market price.
“However, with an understanding of the underlying power market and various adjustment factors, it is possible to arrive at a sensible range for a given PPA scenario.
“At present, any publicly available information is generally anecdotal and project-specific, while the majority of PPA data is obscured by non-disclosure agreements. As no two projects are the same, this means available corporate PPA data have had limited usefulness.”