On October 3, the Armenian Ministry of Energy announced that the country’s first PV power plant installed under a special tariff regime for solar installations not exceeding 1 MW is now operational.
The ArevEk solar facility has a capacity of 0.5 MW and is located in Hrazdan city, in the Makravan district. The installation was built by Energo Invest Holding with modules provided by German-based module manufacturer Recom and inverters from Swiss conglomerate ABB.
The ministry stressed that the project costs were around $0.5 billion. Energo Invest financed the project with its own funds.
The Ministry added that so far, the Armenian Public Services Regulatory Commission has granted 11 licenses for the construction of solar power plants with a capacity of up to 1 MW. The Armenian government introduced a special tariff for this kind of project in late 2016.
The tariff applies to PV projects ranging in size from 150 kW up to 1 MW. In December 2016, Hayk Harutyunyan, Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Energy said that the tariff for these projects would be equal to those of wind energy, which is of AMD 42.645 ($0.09) per kWh without VAT.
In addition to the above scheme, the Armenian government is currently supporting large-scale solar through a tender mechanism and commercial and residential PV up to 150 kW through net metering.
Armenia intends to cover 30% of its electricity demand with renewable energy by 2025.
(source: pv-magazine)
