Photo: Croatian Government
The Croatian government has sent two energy bills – on renewable energy sources and high-efficiency cogeneration and on energy efficiency – to the parliament. The bills envisage new rules concerning suppliers’ offtake of electricity from privileged producers, mandatory energy efficiency measures for end-consumers, and measures to increase the installation of solar panels in households.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy Ivo Milatić said that under the bill on renewable energy sources and high-efficiency cogeneration, electricity suppliers will be obliged to purchase a certain share of electricity generated by producers eligible to receive incentives from the Croatian energy market operator (HROTE). HROTE would sell the remaining share of the electricity on the market.
Suppliers now have the obligation to take over all the electricity generated by producers eligible to receive incentives from the HROTE at the regulated purchase price, and that obligation is to expire on January 1, 2019. The termination of this obligation was postponed two times so far.
Under the bill, the termination of this obligation would jeopardize the incentives model, as well as the proper settlement of the purchase contracts between the operator and the producers eligible to receive incentives.
The bill also harmonizes the Croatian legislation with the amendments to the EU Renewable Energy Directive.
The new regulation will enable faster development of the installation of the solar panels in households, more transparent public bidding, legal protection and control over the legality of the conducted bidding for the granting of a premium and bidding for incentives in the form of a guaranteed price, said Milatić.
Introduction of mandatory energy efficiency measures for end-consumers
The final bill on energy efficiency transposes the provisions of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive in the Croatian legislation, which envisages that each Member State in order to achieve the cumulative end-use energy savings target, shall introduce a mandatory energy efficiency measures by December 31, 2020. But there is also a possibility for alternative measures.
Under the Croatian National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, part of the savings is to be achieved through mandatory measures, and part through alternative ones, so the bill introduces mandatory measures for end-consumers.
The bill also states that the reason for the new regulation is that the European Commission has launched an investigation into the proper implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive.
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