site.btaRE-Source-Southeast 2022 Conference Opens in Sofia

The best thing for each energy system in transition is to have current capacities to balance out the transition and make it the most efficient, said Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov addressing a two-day regional conference RE-Source-Southeast on renewable corporate sourcing at Sofia Tech Park. He underscored that if power generating plants which operate on fossil fuels are shut down, both in Bulgaria and in Europe the system will collapse.

According to the Energy Minister, if Europe does not implement an adequate and well-planned policy, it will be impossible for Bulgaria too. Nikolov specified that in Southeastern Europe which has a shortage of electricity Bulgaria is the only balancer which exports electricity, so Bulgaria’s electricity system is export oriented and neighbouring countries depend on it. He added that having RES projects whose capacity exceeds three times the country’s peak consumption means that there is no problem with the licencing regime, but the implementation of these projects is delayed. “Things are neither very black, as they are made out to be sometimes, nor very white,” said Nikolov. However he specified that the normative framework should be changed.

Changes to the legislation already allow a much easier procedure for installing RES systems for self-consumption, Deputy Prime Minister for Climate Policies and Environment Minister Borislav Sandov told the conference. According to him, this is a step ahead in an attempt to speed up the inevitable transformation and allow the business and consumers to produce themselves electricity.

According to Minister Sandov, Bulgaria should decentralize more its energy system, install more RES facilities and have more market players, even small ones. He said that even households which install roof solar panels become part of the country’s energy system in some way.