By decision of the Minister of Environment and Energy, Kostis Hatzidakis, (Government Gazette B 3291/6 August 2020) the Decision “Classification of public and private projects and activities into categories and subcategories” is amended, according to article 1 paragraph 4 of Law 4014/21.09. 2011 (A ‘209), regarding the classification of the projects and activities of the 10th Group of Renewable Energy Sources “(DIPA / oik.37674 / 10.8.2016 with Government Gazette B’ 2471)
According to a relevant announcement of RIS, this decision simplifies the environmental licensing of RES stations by classifying more projects in lower environmental subcategories A2 and B (Standard Environmental Commitments-PPD), as the energy report wrote in the morning report.
For example, in photovoltaic stations
Power plants up to 1MW are now exempt from environmental licensing (while previously the limit was 0.5MW),
Stations with an installed capacity from 1 MW to 10 MW (instead of the previous limit of 2 MW) now belong to the “lighter” category of PPD.
At wind farms respectively,
Stations with up to 10 MW installed (instead of 5 MW) are subject to PPD.
In addition, for the first time, electricity storage projects are classified as environmental when it is installed in a RES station, as it is defined that they necessarily “follow” the subcategory of the main project.
The need to amend the current ministerial decision arose following the enactment of the environmental law (L.4685 / 2020), which established the replacement of the RES Production License with the Producer Certificate. As RAE is expected to issue a number of Certificates in a short period of time, it is necessary to provide facilities for environmental licensing, which is the next licensing phase. The competent Working Group of RIS under the Secretary General of Energy and Mineral Raw Materials, Alexandra Sdoukou, moreover, is working intensively to simplify the Installation Permit which is the next link in the licensing “chain”.
The ultimate goal of the Ministry is to radically reduce the licensing time of a RES project to two years on average (from 5-7 today), with the adoption of all the necessary regulations by the end of this year. This is a prerequisite for achieving the goals of the National Plan for Energy and Climate and the rapid increase of the percentage of RES in the country’s energy mix.
