A series of pending issues in the renewable energy sources (RES) sector, most crucially, the finalization of a new support plan, have led to sluggish progress and stagnated investments, sector officials have pointed out in comments to energypress.

Quite paradoxically, while prospective investors are waiting for the new RES support plan specifying production payment details, they face an imminent deadline at the end of this month to submit letters of guarantee without knowing whether their investments can be sustainable.

Also, although an amendment has been made permitting the imposition of a surcharge on RES producers to help finance the “disruption management” energy cost-saving plan for the industrial sector, a further revision needed to avoid applying this surcharge to gross earnings declared by RES producers has yet to be made, RES officials pointed out.

In addition, seven months have elapsed since HEDNO, the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator, promised to free a sizeable backlog of older and unitilized RES project permit applications, most of which will not be actualized. These dormant applications need to be cancelled to free capacity for islands where investors are seeking to pursue net metering plans. Considerable interest is being by investors on Crete. HEDNO has yet to publish an official list detailing the cancelled applications.

Net metering enables electricity consumers who generate their own power from an eligible on-site facility and deliver it to local distribution facilities to offset the electric energy provided by the utility during an applicable billing period.