Renewable Energy Law 3851

The new renewable energy law establishes more ambitious national renewable energy targets that should reach 20% of total national energy consumption and 40% of total electricity consumption by 2020. Moreover, 20% of energy used in heating and cooling and 10% of energy used in transportation have to come from renewable sources. The new legislation foresees the creation of a Special Renewable Energy Investment Service that will act as an interface between public institutions and investors, annually assess the main challenges to renewable energy deployment and manage the support funding allocation process. Existing remuneration of individual residents in areas where renewable energy projects are running have been amended and replaced by a credit on electricity bills. In fact, the law establishes that a share of the RE concession taxes paid by RE producers to regional and local authorities will will be allocated to local households as a credit on their electricity bill as a way to share the benefits of living nearby a renewable energy generation plant. The renewable energy generation licensing process has also been very much fasten and eased by the regulation that entitles the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) with the assessment and issuance of licences, under the authority of the ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. The whole licensing process can not last over a 30-month period. Moreover, absolute priority is given to RES projects combined with desalination plants, when and only when the RES project is on an island and its capacity does not exceed 25% of the capacity of the desalination plant. The law also tackles the grid infrastructure challenge and implements a timely limited target for the grid utility to connect non-interconnected islands to the main grid. Still, RE projects are not granted grid priority access as grid connection will be established on a first-come first served basis until the network is saturated. The grid utility is compelled to provide grid access within four months after the connection demand has been released. The Law 3851 also establishes a whole new set of feed-in tariffs for electricity from renewable sources, to be found in the Greek FIT article.

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