“At no time were there any talks with us and the redirection of nearly BGN 1 billion under the National Plan for Recovery and Sustainability from energy projects to remediation was not discussed. Our position is clear – that this money should be invested in energy projects aimed at energy independence from Russia, for whatever purpose it is allocated”, Energy Minister Rumen Radev announced to the parliamentary committee for control of EU funds. In an extremely calm tone, he made it clear that energy policy should be led by the Ministry of Energy and that there are serious interventions in his department.
“I did not get the impression that this is the team that is leading the negotiations on the new RepowerEU chapter in the plan for recovery and sustainability,” stated Minister Radev in a straight text in response to a question at what stage are the talks on this topic with the EC. Under the RepowerEU mechanism, Bulgaria will receive 480 million euros, which should be invested in energy projects guaranteeing the sector’s independence from Russia. Radev did not specifically indicate who was leading the negotiations, but it was understood from the explanations that it was about the intervention of Finance Minister Asen Vassilev in the process. Before this same commission in January, Vassilev surprisingly announced that all resources under the new chapter will be redirected to rehabilitation projects, where there are many prepared and unclassified projects. These projects are financed under a completely different procedure led by the regional ministry.
Radev’s words surprised the deputies and gave Tomislav Donchev from GERB an opportunity to ask in plain text whether Asen Vassilev had lied to the commission. Radev avoided a direct confrontation by reminding again in which department energy falls. It got to the point where deputies recommended Radev to seek a meeting with Vasilev and come to an understanding. Both GERB and PP hinted at how bad it is for projects to rehabilitate residential buildings to remain unfunded.
Indirectly, Radev also made it clear that there are very serious problems surrounding the inclusion, after the very active role of Asen Vasilev, of a megaproject for the construction of a battery park in the recovery and sustainability plan. The capacity of the Restore project was cut in half from 6,000 to 3,000 MWh, in the course of the mechanical pruning of the plan’s money due to GDP recalculations. In addition, the parliament ordered the project to be transformed – from a fully state-owned company into a scheme for both individuals and legal entities.
“After all the calculations we made when reworking the project into a support scheme for individuals and legal entities, we can provide energy storage facilities with a maximum capacity of 1,200 MWh against the required 3,000,” explained the minister. He specified that the main potential here is along the line of industrial users. From Radev’s words, it was understood that the remaining capacity will be provided in line with the permitted exceptions in the law on energy, that the activity of storage should also be carried out by operators of the transmission and distribution network.
From Radev’s comments, it became clear that he initially did not consider another of the highly publicized projects in the editing of the sustainability plan – for the production of electricity from geothermal sources – to be expedient. “One cannot rely on large capacities in the production of energy from geothermal sources, they are more suitable for heat production,” said Radev. And this scheme is being revised after the intervention of Parliament in a grant scheme for individuals and legal entities. The news surprised PP MPs who asked what was going on with the pilot plant project.
As “Sega” wrote, the list of projects prepared by the Ministry of Energy under RepowerEU was already ready last year. Our country had a chance to submit it by the end of the year and receive advance financing, but this chance was missed and our country is among the countries that will not be entitled to use an advance. 21 Member States have already received advance financing of 20% of the amounts due under this instrument, or EUR 10.4 billion. Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg are not eligible for advances because they have not handed over their respective RepowerEU chapters by the end of 2023. Two countries have not requested such advance funding.
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2024-03-01 13:58:05
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