Bulgaria adopts changes to Energy from Renewable Sources Act

By amending its renewables law, Bulgaria simplified permitting, obligated developers to provide banking guarantees. It also regulated the establishment and operation of citizen energy communities.

The National Assembly of Bulgaria passed the proposed changes to the Energy from Renewable Sources Act without debate. The law accelerates the permitting process for the production of green energy. Furthermore, it opens the way for a zoning plan for renewables in line with the European Union’s REPowerEU legislation.

Namely, the special areas will host wind, solar and hydropower plants on land, offshore wind parks and floating photovoltaics, also known as floatovoltaics.

Developers of utility-scale renewable electricity plants will need to provide a guarantee of EUR 25,600 per MW of planned capacity. However, investors in systems for self-consumption are exempted. In addition, lawmakers voted to roll out long-term purchase contracts and preferential prices for new units with a capacity of up to 30 kW.

Energy from Renewable Sources Act introduces net billing for prosumers

The Energy from Renewable Sources Act regulates the establishment of citizen energy communities. They are becoming market participants with any surplus electricity that they produce. Such entities have the right to sign bilateral contracts with suppliers. A net billing and virtual net billing mechanism was adopted for prosumers.

New provisions also promote renewable and synthetic fuels in transportation

The new legislation introduces EU standards for guarantees of origin including the possibility to issue such certificates for gas from renewable sources and green hydrogen.

The government said the law promotes the production and consumption of renewable energy and synthetic and recycled fuels in transportation.

Changing the Energy from Renewable Sources Act was one of the conditions for accessing funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and time was running out. Earlier, the government sent the draft changes to the Law on Energy to parliament. It includes provisions for energy communities, active buyers and aggregators.

The government immediately sent the proposed amendments to the recovery plan to the European Commission. The sum of available grants is lowered to EUR 5.69 from EUR 6.27 billion as economic growth came in higher than expected. Bulgaria reduced several items to avoid the loss of funds over deadline breaches. They include subsidies for energy storage, energy efficiency and green hydrogen and biogas.

Renewable energy in power transmission grid surges by 57.9%

In other news, the Electricity System Operator said that electricity output in the first nine months of the year dropped 21.4% on an annual basis to 30.4 TWh while consumption decreased 5% to 27.1 TWh.

In the transmission grid, the volume of renewable electricity surged 57.9% to 1.92 TWh. It was mostly attributed to the advance of solar power by a stunning 139%. There was 1.93 TWh registered in the distribution network or 10.4% more than in the same period of 2022.