RES update – competitive procedures for feed in premiums (FiP)
(Article by Mira Todorovic Symeonides, published in the Energy & Natural Resources Newsletter of the ILO on November 19, 2018)
On 18 October 2018 the Regulatory Energy Agency (RAE) launched the second regular competitive procedures for determining the reference prices of state aid for wind and solar energy producers in Greece, which offers a total tender capacity of 423 megawatts (MW). The first regular competition procedures were conducted on 2 July 2018.
Overview of RES state aid scheme
The new renewable energy sources (RES) state aid scheme was introduced in Greece in 2016 by way of Law 4414/2016. The law provides that RES state aid will be granted in the form of operating aid, either as:
- feed-in-premiums (FiPs), which are essentially contracts for the difference between the market price of electricity and the reference price; in most cases, the reference price is determined in
by way of competitive procedures; or - in exceptional cases, feed-in-tariffs (FiTs).
According to the respective ministerial decisions, there are two types of competitive procedure:
- regular competitive procedures, which are organised for:
- wind projects with a capacity between 3MW and 50MW;
- photovoltaic (PV) plants with a capacity between 500 kilowatts and 1MW (small PV
projects); and - PV plants with a capacity between 1MW and 20MW (large PV projects); and
- pilot competitive procedures, which are organised for other RES projects.
In 2018 the maximum capacity of any aid provided through regular procedures was determined to be 600 MW as follows:
- 70MW for small PV projects;
- 230MW for big PV projects; and
- 300MW for wind projects.
In order to enhance competition, the final auctioned capacity is determined by the minimum competition level, which has been set at 75%. This means that the total capacity for which aid will be
awarded cannot exceed 75% of the capacities of the participants in the competition. The capacities applied for in July 2018 were below the maximum provided. In addition, the RAE did not approve participation for all of the submitted applications. Subsequently, instead of the maximum 600MW, a total of 283MW of state aid was approved.
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