New Rules applicable to Renewable Energy Projects in Bulgaria

Sofia, 30 September 2019

New rules amending the Bulgarian Energy Law and the Bulgarian Law on Energy from Renewable Sources were recently enacted in Bulgaria.

The most important legal issues are:

• The electricity of high-efficiency generation facilities and renewable energy plants having a capacity between 1 MW and 4 MW will no longer be purchased at preferential prices. The producers will sell their electricity on the organized electricity exchange market.
• The same small energy producers from high-efficiency generation facilities and renewable energy plants having the capacity between 1 MW and 4 MW must conclude contracts with the Electricity System Security Fund (the “Fund”) in order to receive compensations at a premium that will be defined annually by the Fund.
• The small renewable energy producers with an installed capacity of up to 30 kW will have only annually to declare their revenues and to pay their contributions to the Fund.
• The producers of electricity, the operators of the distributions networks for the quantity of electricity needed to cover the technological costs of transmission, and the final customers (except for the sites of the customers supplied through direct electricity grids) are defined as persons that will have to pay for access and/or transmission to the electricity grid.