Renewable energy producers are facing gradually increasing payment delays for their output, an unsettling development for many investors as they are depending on these payments to complete installations of new RES facilities, facing tight deadlines.

A number of factors have been cited for the growing payment delay, including a reduction, last April, of a RES-supporting surcharge contribution by suppliers, its abolishment as of 2019, and, possibly, smaller transfers by the main power utility PPC of a RES-supporting ETMEAR surcharge collected from consumers through power bills.

Payment delay periods were improving but stopped shrinking in the summer and have since gradually grown longer, adding an additional two weeks to the waiting period for producers, sources have informed.

This development has unsettled RES producers and prompted fears of bigger payment delays ahead. Electricity suppliers are imminently expecting RES special account returns, plus interest, from the account’s surplus achieved in 2018, not including a 70 million-euro reserve required by law as a safety net for the RES special account.

RES officials have called for an energy ministry decision that would stop the return of the RES special account surplus for 2018 to electricity suppliers. Instead, the RES officials want the surplus to be used to bolster the RES special account’s reserve. Energy minister Giorgos Stathakis has not ruled out such a development, sources informed.