EUR 500 MILLION TO BE INVESTED IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY

The government prepares special programs to the tune of more than EUR 500 mln. that will fund energy effectiveness in Bulgaria. EUR 150 mln. of this money will be allocated via EU funding, while EUR 50 – 150 mln. will come as a credit line loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development /EBRD/, designed for funding of the projects approved. That was voiced at the Balkan Policies for Green Economic Growth Forum by Bulgarian Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism Delian Dobrev.

Saving of electricity is more effective than the building of new green projects, the economy minister says. One of the reasons lies in the fact that Bulgarian households and business consume 5-8 times more energy on the average for the EU. That is why from now on we need to invest seriously in energy effectiveness, the minister said on the governmental programs that will start this year. The RES sector should continue to develop, but at a more moderate pace, due to the fact that green energy is more expensive than the other sources and is included in the final price for both the business and households, the minister pointed out.

Bulgaria is one of the best EU member-states, regarding the execution of the program for implementation of green energy in the energy mix till 2020. The future green projects should be subsidized very carefully, since new hundreds of megawatts of RES will be installed this year. The careful approach to this market is due to the danger of overheating – that was what happened in the Czech Republic and Spain, where the preferential price of green energy had to be terminated. According to the economy minister if we let this happen in Bulgaria and the country reaches the goals of the up-to-2020 EU program, no investments in RES will be available for the next seven years.
Over 20 percent of the energy in this country will be produced by RES in 2020, or 6 percent more on the current situation.

Water and nuclear plants will dominate, while the rest of the energy will come from solar thermal collectors and biomass. The data comes from a report, dedicated to Financial Solutions for Pure Energy, prepared by the Cambridge University. According to the experts Bulgaria has good resources for installing of wind turbines. Its potential is calculated to 3 gigawatts. At the same time the government relies on 1.4 gigawatts of green projects in this sphere till 2020. The increasing of the RES capacities for the planned period 2010 – 2020 will come as a result from the increasing exactly of the number of wind turbines. Experts say that Bulgaria has an extreme potential for development of solar energy, since the sun shines 20 times more in this country, compared to Germany for instance. This fact is the reason new 300 megawatts of solar energy powers, photovoltaic parks, roof solar panels etc. to be planned. The usage of biomass for the building of new capacities is limited to 150 megawatts till 2020.

The Balkan Policies for Green Economic Growth Forum took place just before the conference of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro that will focus its attention on green economy. The goal of the Balkan Forum in Sofia was to look for a common stance of Bulgaria, Romania and the Western Balkans countries for the forthcoming conference. The meeting turned into a place for exchange of information and ideas in the RES sphere, which will help to the future EU member-states to orientate in the problems and the future of this energy sector.