Investments prepared for months by the Ministry of Energy under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan may go to waste because of the remediation. Finance Minister Asen Vassilev surprisingly announced to the EU funds control committee that the cabinet is considering the idea of redirecting an available resource of 480 million euros from the energy ministry entirely to the rehabilitation projects. There is a lot of interest there with many submitted projects amid a lack of funding and a loud scandal surrounding the rankings.
The idea to redirect the money was developed during a hearing by Vassilev on the level of implementation of the recovery plan and the new and old operational programs. Bulgaria must present to the EC a new chapter to the recovery plan under the RepowerEU initiative for energy independence from Russia, with available funds amounting to 480 million euros. Until now, the Ministry of Energy was working on this chapter, but Vasilev surprisingly announced that all money can be redirected to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources for rehabilitation. “You know that projects with a total value of BGN 3 billion were received there, and the available resource is about BGN 1 billion. With this additional nearly one billion, it will be possible to conduct a second procedure and support 2/3 of all projects Vassilev said. He added that in this second round there is no way that the funding will be 100% and there will be complicity, but they were looking for ways to provide interest-free lending to households or other support schemes. From Vassilev’s speech, one got the impression that the idea of redirecting the money is hardly consensual.
At the same time, from a report provided by Vassilev himself, it became clear that the Ministry of Energy was preparing completely different investments in line with the plan and only a small part of the money was for energy efficiency. In December, Rumen Radev’s ministry informed the MPs that a total of 7 investments were proposed under RepowerEU. It is planned that ESO will receive a total of 292.5 million euros through two investments – adaptation of the electricity transmission network to integrate the potential for RES production (202.5 million euros) and increased support for the digital transformation of the electricity transmission network (90 million euros). 50 million euros have been pledged for buildings with close to zero consumption, 150 million euros for pre-project studies for the construction of PAVEC next to existing dams. 100 million euros are pledged for near-zero consumption heating systems. 3.3 million euros have been pledged for two small projects – to create an observatory for energy poverty (2.3 million euros) and to create an interactive map for 28 regional cities with data on the potential for energy production from photovoltaic roof systems .
These investment intentions have certainly been agreed with the European Commission. Energy Minister Rumen Radev himself discussed the prepared chapter on the recovery plan yesterday as part of an official visit to Brussels. Energy experts were amazed that this resource could be diverted to remediation. “The idea is that RePowerEU is about accelerating and expanding the transition to clean energy; building and expanding the gas infrastructure, etc. Remediation with 100% public grant is ineffective – so many years and money have been invested, the achieved scope is very small”. experts comment.
A Sega inquiry has shown that energy efficiency projects are legally eligible for RepowerEU funding. It can be expected that it will be easier for Bulgaria to implement the rehabilitation projects. At the same time, key investments in the energy system that affect the whole society outside the group of buildings approved for rehabilitation will remain exposed.
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2024-02-02 07:10:02
#Projects #Ministry #Energy #BGN #billion #waste
