Greece Passes New RES Law

Greece introduced a new Renewable Energy Sources (RES) law that is designed to dramatically transform the RES market in Greece and provide a huge opportunity to investors.

The law doubles the target for the contribution of RES to electricity consumption in Greece by 2020, originally set at 20% and now set at 40%.The bill also reduces the licenscing procedure time from 3-5 years to 8-10 months, provides for discounts in the energy bills of some communities, and introduces a new tariff regime for new RES installations, providing for a 20% higher tariff to investors who choose not to take advantage of state subsidies in their development of RES installations.

Some key components of the new RES legislation:

National Targets for RES for the Year 2020. (a) 20% of the gross final energy consumption, (b) 20% of the final energy consumption for heating and cooling and (c)

10% of the final energy consumption in transportation should derive from the energy produced through RES.

Offshore Wind Farms. Installation is permitted. For the construction and operation of such projects companies must comply with the procedure of Environmental

Terms Approval. For the completion of the project and the connection to the grid an open public tender is held.

Land Planning for RES. The installation of RES power plants must be in compliance with the General and Special Framework for Land Planning and Sustainable

Development for RES. Electricity production is permitted on high production agricultural land provided that the land is covering no more than 1% of all farmland in the specific prefecture.

RES in Buildings. The use of RES in new buildings is mandatory. There is also a provision for energy savings in the building sector.

One-Stop Shop for RES. An independent service for RES is being introduced in the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change which will act as an

«one-stop shop» and will be responsible for providing information to all investors interested in RES.