| Category: | Solar - Contract Pricing |
| Subject: | Price degression for ground mounted systems |
| ID: | 10125 |
| Date: | 4/1/2009 |
| Question: |
Large developers have advantages of economies of scale unavailable to smaller developers, and it only takes 10 max size projects to incur the 9% price drop. This could very quickly crowd out smaller developers and prevent them from being able to compete.
Could the price degression be applied on a "per developer" basis (after 10MW is installed), rather than globally? This would spread the most economically preferable contracts more evenly, allowing smaller developers to compete on a more equal footing. If the global limit of 100MW per price rung is still desired, it would be nice if at least 20MW of each price rung was reserved for smaller developers (<=2MW). IMO, the price for smaller developers shouldn't be subject to these automatic price adjustments; instead, they should be updated every one or two years as needed. |
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question/comment. The OPA expects to use an Automatic Price Adjustment mechanism for certain technologies as proposed in section 5.2 of the draft FIT rules. At this time, the OPA has not considered alternative mechanisms to trigger an automatic price adjustment.
If you disagree with the OPA's proposed approach, we welcome submissions from stakeholders through the online "Make a Submission" tool. Submissions should include recommendations for an alternative approach, as well as a justification for the alternative approach. The OPA's proposed FIT price schedule will be the topic of discussion during the April 7th Stakeholder Engagement Session. The rationale for the automatic price trigger will be explained during this session. |