Dissensions appeared between green energy producers and the Ministry of Energy after Parliament gave a first reading to a bill to promote renewable energy sources. The small producers operating in this sector said the authorities encourage only the large companies that have big photovoltaic and Aeolian parks to the detriment of small producers. For their part, representatives of the Ministry of Energy said the state aims to ensure the country’s energy security and the encouragement of large projects means competitive prices, IPN reports.
The new amendments to the law to promote sources of renewable energy envision the possibility of holding tender contests for large capacities of electrical energy generated from renewable sources, such as photovoltaic and Aeolian parks.
“The Ministry follows the line of big parks and big tender contests, while we, the small producers of renewable energy, are left aside. This is a kind of discrimination. The law is adopted in accordance with the European principles and nondiscrimination, equality of opportunities in business too is one of the EU principles. By this law, the small producers will be limited. We will be marginalized. The local initiative will be subjugated. The local small producers are the first enthusiasts who started to produce green energy. Not the state did this,” the chairman of the Association of Aeolian and Photovoltaic Electricity Producers of Moldova Eugen Gîrlea stated in the program “Freedom Territory”.
In the same connection, representatives of the Government said the authorities aim to increase the country’s energy security by producing local energy, reducing dependence on third sources, decreasing imports, increasing private investments in the sector and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Holding tender contests for large capacities of renewable energy until this yearend is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Energy. This law hadn’t been reassessed since 2016. During eight years, the situation in the field of renewable energy changed a lot. Today, renewable energy represents only 6% of the total electricity. For us, it is important to have a bigger share of electricity produced in our country. The bill was already adopted in the first reading in Parliament. The discussions with the MPs didn’t generate serious questions. We fully support local producers that made effort and found financing for the own project in the Republic of Moldova. But big projects mean supply of electrical energy at competitive prices,” said secretary of state of the Ministry of Energy Carolina Novac.
One of the producers of electricity from renewable energy sources said the bill that was adopted after the first reading by Parliament doesn’t encourage small entrepreneurs to make investments in this sector.
“It is very hard to accurately anticipate the green energy production. The tolerance margin permitted to green energy producers for not being included in the bill is 4%-8%. The margin for solar energy producers is 4%, for Aeolian energy producers is 8%. This mechanism represents a stimulus for making more accurate forecasts. Throughout the debates on this mechanism, the renewable energy producers were in the focus and the world “eligible” was ultimately added to the bill discussed in Parliament. Respectively, this right will be enjoyed only by a part of the producers,” said the representative of a local renewable energy company Vyacheslav Moldovan.
The Republic of Moldova set the national goal of ensuring that at least 30% of the electricity consumed domestically is produced from renewable energy sources until 2030, up from the current figure of 6%.
