Renewable energy market players across the board have expressed their opposition to a public consultation proposal made by RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, which would impose a 20 percent limit on RES auction participants for capacities offered in all categories – small and large-scale photovoltaics and wind energy – small and large-scale photovoltaics and wind energy – they made clear at conference in Athens yesterday staged by A-Energy Investments.

RES auction participants exceeding this 20 percent upper limit would have all their bids cancelled and lose the full amounts of participation fees and guarantees committed, according to the RAE proposal.

Conference participants argued the proposal would not solve problems but create new ones.

RAE forwarded its upper-limit proposal as a measure intended to counter segmentation problems observed in a previous RES auction, especially in the small-scale PV category, where it was found that one participant accumulated over 50 percent of the capacity offered through various segmented bids.

However, RAE itself has now admitted the proposal cannot counter the segmentation problem at RES auctions as it would not stop single participants from establishing multiple representations for the auctions, including SPVs, and end up with a greater share, even the total amount, of capacities offered.

RAE representative Dionysis Papachristou, responding to a related question at yesterday’s conference, informed that a 20 percent upper limit would not be implemented for a joint wind and PV RES auctions planned for 2019.