Amendments to RES regulations
(Article by Mira Todorovic Symeonides, Partner, and Alexandra Daniil published in the Energy & Natural Resources Newsletter of the ILO on Νοv 15, 2021)
In July 2021, Law 4819/2021 (OJ A’ 129/23.7.2021) introduced provisions that established urgent measures in the Greek energy sector,
including the obligation for renewable energy source (RES) production certificate holders to provide letters of guarantee.
Obligation to provide to letter of guarantee to RAE
Article 137 of Law 4819/2021 introduced an obligation to provide the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) with a letter of guarantee as a
condition of the issuance of a producer certificate or a special projects production certificate. The amount of the guarantee provided in
this law depends on the capacity of the future plant for which the production certificate is issued, and it is equal to €35,000 per megawatt.
The amount of the guarantee may be amended by a decision of the minister of environment and energy.
This obligation also applies to holders of RES regulations for production certificates that were issued before Law 4819/2021 entered into force if such
holders did not manage to submit the application for issuing the final connection terms to the grid operator for up until 28 February 2022.
If the holders fail to provide the letter of guarantee for up until 28 February 2021, the respective production certificates will automatically
be invalidated.
The main exceptions from this obligation are:
- plants with a maximum production capacity below or equal to one megawatt;
- plants that, before Law 4819/2021 entered into force, were approved to be strategic investments in compliance with Law 3894/2010
(Α’ 204) or Law 4608/2019 (Α’ 66); and - certain local government authorities and entities fulfilling publicly beneficial purposes (other than energy communities), such as
hospitals, health centres and all schools.
Up until 31 December 2024, the Law suspends submitting applications to the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) and issuing new
production certificates for hybrid RES plants on the interconnected islands or islands that are to be connected to the interconnected
system in 2019–2028. In addition, up until 31 December 2021, the Law suspends submitting applications and issuing production licences,
environmental approvals and binding offers for connection to the grid to RES production plants with a storage system. Plants with
pumping storage are excluded. The above suspension does not apply to applications amending already issued production licences, and
certificates for projects on Crete and other non-interconnected islands.
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