RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, has revoked the unutilized operating licenses for seventeen renewable energy source (RES) projects with a total capacity of 190 MW following requests made by their holders in order avoid further financial commitments. In certain cases, companies were already undergoing liquidation procedures.

The majority of revoked licenses concerned prospective photovoltaic units, while one case involved a large-scale biomass plant.

License holders chose to have their licenses revoked to avoid further financial commitments linked with a requirement to submit letters of guarantee for various amounts correlated with the respective capacities of their prospective RES units. In most cases, banks demand advance cash deposits covering the entire amounts specified in letters of guarantee.

Based on the market’s regulations, the majority of investors seeking to develop photovoltaic units would have had to submit letters of guarantee worth 45,000 euros, not a negligible amount amid the prevailing market conditions.

The investors behind the seventeen stalled RES projects submitted requests to have their permits revoked during the final days of 2014 to avoid further financial burdens in 2015.

Stricter conditions have been imposed to desaturate the RES sector of licenses that would remain untilized with the aim of promoting cases possessing true development potential, reflected by financial backing.

Breaking down these license withdrawals in sub-categories, 14 concerned photovoltaic units with a total capacity of 53.2 MW, two had been issued for prospective wind-energy facilities with a total capacity of 24 MW, and one revocation concerned a large-scale 100-MW biomass production plant that had been planned for the industrial zone of Volos, in Greece’s mid-east.