Outdated bureaucratic procedures at RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, maintaining an ineffective processing model for renewable energy production licenses, are the cause of major delays contravening national and international RES growth targets that have been set to tackle climate change.

Highlighting the problem, of 522 solar energy production license applications  submitted to RAE between December, 2017 and March, 2019, the authority has so far granted just four licenses, the first of these 13 months after applications were submitted.

At this rate, it would require 141 years to process all applications submitted to RAE to date.

RAE has complained of being understaffed. However, the RES sector’s new reality of competitive procedures no longer requires RAE inspections on the sustainability of investment plans before production licenses are issued.

Simpler licensing procedures are needed, it has become very clear. In the case of solar energy facilities, this means abolishing existing licenses required for production, installation and operation and replacing these with a new system concerning licensing and monitoring of investments, as SEF/HELAPCO, the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies, had proposed in detail long before the current situation set in.