The energy ministry plans to soon submit to Parliament a legislative revision for a mechanism offering third parties access to power utility PPC’s lignite-fired electricity production. This move will enable the implementation of an agreement on the matter between the government and the European Commission as a remedy to a long-running antitrust case concerning PPC’s monopoly in the lignite sector.

Officials are aiming for a first round of lignite-produced electricity packages to become available to third parties imminently, by the fourth quarter of this year.

All electricity suppliers will be entitled to purchase these packages, to have three-month durations.

Electricity quantities planned to be offered to suppliers through the mechanism in the fourth quarter this year will be calculated to represent 50 percent of lignite-fired output in the equivalent period of 2020. Then, for every quarter in 2022 and 2023, lignite-fired packages to be offered to PPC’s rivals will represent 40 percent of lignite-based production in equivalent quarters of the respective previous years.

According to the country’s decarbonization plan, all existing lignite-fired power stations will cease operating and no longer participate in the electricity market by the end of 2023.

A prospective PPC facility, Ptolemaida V, is planned to be launched as a lignite-fired power station early in 2023 before it is withdrawn in December, 2024 for a fuel conversion and reintroduction.