The energy ministry is reassessing priority network access rights offered to energy communities in an effort to achieve an improved balance that would also give grid-link applications submitted by individual investors a better chance of being considered and approved by DEDDIE/DEDNO, the network distribution operator.

The lifting of obstacles for energy communities, to facilitate their acquisition of grid-link rights, has left individual RES investors out in the dark, the processing of their applications either completely forgotten or severely delayed.

The problem was raised to the energy ministry’s Director General Dimitris Tsalemis by various by various RES sector officials and agencies, including SPEF, the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Energy Producers, at last week’s Renewable & Storage Forum in Athens, staged by energypress.

Investors must be assured their requests will eventually be examined even if other applications have priority rights, Tsalemis explained at the forum. The principle of trust in administration must be safeguarded, he noted.

Despite admitting his concern over obstacles faced by individual RES investments, the energy ministry official underlined energy communities are a tool paving the way towards the new era.

Energy communities enable electricity consumers to also become producers through renewable energy output, while also permitting municipalities and regional authorities to establish localized energy policies.