On October 25, 2011 the Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change issued the new ‘Renewable Energy Sources (R.E.S.) and Cogeneration of Heat and Power of high efficiency (C.H.P.) Electricity Generation Licences Regulation’ implementing the requirements of the new RES Law 3851/2010 ‘Accelerating the development of Renewable Energy Sources to deal with climate change’. With the adoption of the respective Regulation the basic regulatory framework governing the RES and CHP production licenses procedure is completed.
The new Regulation specifies the provisions of the new legislative framework which simplifies and accelerates the procedure for the issuance of the production license. Specifically, the main changes introduced with the new Regulation are the following:
a) Incorporation of the new assessment criteria for the issuance of the production license laid down in Law 3851/2010, i.e. as regards compliance with the Special Framework for Spatial Planning for RES and compatibility of the projects with the National Action Plan for RES.
b) The assessment method of the criterion of the capacity is specified, and the concept of congestion in the main land as well as in the Non Interconnected Islands is clarified. Specifically, according to the new RES Law, congestion of an electric area by a potential RES project occurs after the issuance of the Environmental Terms Approval for the respective project, while congestion is confirmed when the available electric space in an area has been covered by binding connection terms offers, with exception the areas of the Non Interconnected Islands which are regulated by a special licensing regime.
c) The amendment procedure of the production licence due to amendments in the shareholder’s structure is specified, whereas a notification procedure is introduced for those changes which do not require an amendment of the license.
d) A detailed procedure for the revocation of the licence is introduced. According to the new regulation the procedure for the request and evaluation of an extension is retroactively repealed, as well as the automatic end of force of the production licence after the expiration of the 30 months period stipulated in Law 3851/2010, and therefore adapting the revocation procedure to the provisions of Law 3983/2011.
e) The regime for the renewal of the production licence is clarified.
f) Precise provisions are introduced as regards the examination and the issuance/evaluation of production licenses on applications submitted in the Non Interconnected Islands due to their special licensing regime introduced by Law 3851/2010, and new provisions are launched for biomass stations, C.H.P. stations, solar thermal power stations and RES stations combined with desalination in the islands.