The Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy issues new draft bill

The Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy issues new draft bill

The Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy issued a new draft bill on 26th of April 2022, which if passed will impact on renewables projects, and solar projects in particular. The draft bill will be open for public consultation until 10th of May 2022.

It covers three main areas:

• Simplification of the licensing process for renewables.
• Storage licensing.
• Framework for pilot marine photovoltaic stations.

The aim of the draft legislation is to facilitate meeting the goals set out in the National Plan for Energy and Climate (NPEC) which have a target date for achievement of 2030. The key goals are to increase the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) share in (a) the country’s energy mix, up to 35%, and (b) the national production of electricity, up to 70%. 

The main objectives of the draft law are to:

• reduce the average licensing time for new RES projects from five years to 14 months;
• develop electricity storage projects with an installed capacity of at least 3.5 GW by 2030;
• increase the capacity of the electricity network to enable integration of more RES units, and 
• further promotion of energy net metering¹.

It is anticipated that by 2030 the total installed capacity from RES will reach 25 GW, up from 8.62 GW today. This targeted increase will require significant investments. It is currently estimated that in order to achieve an increase of 12 GW 10 billion EURO of investments will be required.

Simplification of the licensing process for RES projects

The modernization of the licensing process will be promoted through the simplification, digitalisation and acceleration of the relevant procedures. The new licensing process will also apply to current licence applications. Broadly:

• all actions in order to obtain the licenses will be carried out digitally.
• the number of supporting documents required to be submitted by investors will be drastically reduced.
• the administrative processes that were consecutive, until now, will run in parallel. 

The main changes proposed in the RES draft law are:

• The stages of the licensing process will be reduced from seven to five.
• The licensing timeline will be reduced to 14 months, from the approximately five years or more that it often takes at present.
• The number of supporting documents will be reduced from 91 to 54, with their submission now being standardized and digital.
• A simple notification by the investor will replace the obligation for a formal amendment of the license which used to require the licensing authority’s approval. 
• Regarding the land used, an investor will need to provide a certificate confirming the legitimate use of the land for a project, to be prepared by the investor’s lawyer, thus relieving the System and Network Operators from carrying out their own review.
• The financial ability of the investor will need to be proved to the System and Network Operators by a letter of guarantee² to be provided by the investor at the start of the application with the aim of limiting the number of applications.
• The deadlines for the implementation of the connection works by the System and Network Operators will be reduced, with penalties in case of delays.
• Actions and licenses that were directly interlinked and consecutive, will now be carried out in parallel.
• Flexibility will be given to investors regarding licensing of projects in forest areas, with a reforest study being a condition for electrification and connection of the projects only, and for installation. 
• A “one stop service” will be created by the Ministry of Environment and Energy, to monitor and supervise the entire licensing process from acquisition of the first license (Producer Attestation) to the operation of the project (Operation License). The creation of a consolidated information system is envisaged to incorporate all individual information systems and databases of the relevant licensing authorities, i.e. RAE, the Environmental Directorates, the Decentralized Administrations, the System and Network Operators and DAPEEP. 

Electricity storage stations

Greece aims to develop a minimum of 3.5 GW of electricity storage stations by 2030, in addition to existing hydroelectric stations. Storage projects will help to  increase the penetration of RES, reduce the country's energy dependence on imported fossil fuels and strengthen the country's power efficiency and energy competitiveness. They will also contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, in line with the objectives of the Green Deal,³and reduce electricity costs for final consumers.

Based on forecasts of the Recovery and Resilience Fund⁴, by the end of 2025, electricity storage stations with total capacity of approximately 1500 MW will have been installed, 800-900 MW of which will come mainly from limited capacity storage systems (e.g. batteries) and approximately 700 MW from large capacity storage systems (e.g. pumped storage stations). Greece is the first country in the EU to notify the Directorate-General for Competition of the aid scheme to support electricity storage stations, and is currently awaiting approval. 

The main points of the draft storage law are: 

• reform of the licensing process for installation of individual electricity storage stations.
• introduction of provisions regarding the licensing of renewable sources and high efficiency combined heat and power  generating stations with integrated electricity storage, which either have the ability to absorb energy from the transmission system or the electricity distribution network (see further below).
• Transitional provisions applying to existing licenses and pending applications for the licensing of electricity storage stations under the new framework.

Electricity storage systems are divided into two categories:

• Pure electricity storage projects, i.e. individual storage stations. The production licence for these projects will be granted according to the requirements that already apply for the production licence of “special RES projects”.

• Storage projects combined with RES stations. In this case, the storage station will operate either:
  • in support of the RES station only (known as “behind the meter”), i.e. not able to absorb energy from the network, thus requiring a standard producer licence and eligible to receive operational support from DAPEEP⁵; or
  • able to absorb energy from the grid, requiring a producer licence for Special RES Projects, and not eligible to receive operational support from DAPEEP.

Pilot Marine Photovoltaic Stations

The draft bill further includes a draft "Framework for the development of pilot marine floating photovoltaic stations" covering the licensing, installation and operation of up to 10 Pilot Marine Photovoltaic Stations (“PMPS”).

In order for investors to achieve the deployment of each PMPS, they will need to submit a complete application to the Department of Spatial Planning of the Ministry of Environment and Energy (which will be the competent licensing authority). The method of selection for the pilot projects is likely to be further defined by a Ministerial Decision. 

The draft bill also provides that the PMPS facilities will be exempted from the obligation to obtain a producer licence, an environmental license and a building permit. In addition, the PMPS will receive a Final Grid Connection Offer from IPTO without the need for any prior environmental licensing. The Final Grid Connection Offer will be granted in priority over all requests, within one month from the submission of the relevant application, even in areas already characterized as saturated networks⁶.

Any party with an interest in a PMPS project will be eligible to enter into a Contract for Operational Aid with DAPEEP⁷ until 31/12/2022. It is proposed that this extends to any natural or legal person with a direct or indirect interest via participation in the management, or as a shareholder of a legal entity, of the relevant PMPS. A party will be allowed to conclude such contracts for up to two stations.

For the installation and operation of a PMPS, a single installation and operation permit will be required, which incorporates and replaces all administrative permits required by the current legislation. In addition, it is provided that the Greek State may, at the request of an interested party, grant the use of the relevant marine and land areas for a period of 22 years, for which a certificate for the installation of a PMPS has been issued.