Ministry Rejects Renewable Energy Projects of 2.5 GW

The Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has rejected a total of 33 applications for energy approval with a total capacity of 2.5 GW due to the lack of valid documentation or because the projects did not meet the criteria prescribed by the provisions of the Electricity Market Act.

Let us recall that a year ago, the Ministry of Economy adopted a new Electricity Market Act, according to which the first step in project development is obtaining energy approval through a tender. For energy approval, projects that were in an advanced stage could apply first, namely those that had a location or construction permit or (preliminary) electricity consent or a decision on environmental acceptability by January 19 of this year.

In January, the Ministry received as many as 216 applications for energy approval, which together encompass projects with a capacity of about 6 GW. Unfortunately, based on these applications, the Ministry has so far announced only about 10 tenders, so a whole range of investors cannot further develop their projects as they have been waiting for energy approval for a year.

Projects that did not have any of the aforementioned permits and decisions are in an even worse situation, as they must wait for the Ministry of Economy to adopt a Regulation that will regulate tenders for those projects.

Although the Ministry was supposed to adopt this Regulation back in January, it has not seen the light of day to this day. In addition, a year after the adoption of the Law, several other subordinate acts are still missing for renewable energy projects to be developed, so according to some estimates, about 15 GW of projects are currently ‘on hold’.

In response to Lider’s inquiry about why the tenders for energy approval are being conducted so slowly, what criteria the Ministry follows when announcing tenders, in what order and logic they are announced, and what is the reason for the slow adoption of subordinate acts and even slower implementation, we did not receive a response.