SUBJECT: ACT AMENDING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY ACT, SIGNATURE 002-01-74

SUBJECT: Bill amending and supplementing the Energy Efficiency Act, signature 002-01-74

DEAR MR. NIKOLOV,

In connection with the submitted draft Law for amendment and supplement of the Energy Efficiency Act (LAS of EEА), signature 002-01-74 / 30.12.2020, the Bulgarian Industrial Association expresses the following opinion:

1. General remarks

1.1. The proposed bill contains the bad practice of setting deadlines that introduce obligations for economic entities with a date preceding the entry into force of the law. Please note that according to the Law on Normative Acts, the retroactive effect of a normative act can be given only in exceptional cases. This creates uncertainties within the legal environment and also difficulties for obligated businesses, demonstrating poor planning while trying to ensure the timely compliance of national regulations with EU law. Specifically:

• §25 of the LAS, which proposes a change in Article 31, para. 2, item 3 of the Energy Act and suggests the introduction of a obligation for all investment projects in construction, reconstruction and reconstruction of buildings "to develop their design of buildings with a close to zero energy consumption as of January 1st, 2021";
• §67 of the Amending Act, which proposes changes in the Energy Act in §26a, para. 1 of the Transitional and Final Provisions and defines the obligation of measuring devices installed after October 25, 2020 to have remote reading access, and in para. 7 the requirement is set as “the individual water meters for hot water installed after October 25, 2020 with remote reporting in the properties of the clients, connected to one subscriber station in a building-condominium must be delivered by the person under art. 139b or approved for use in the building by the same person”.

The change covers the measuring devices for consumption of heat energy, cooling energy and heat energy for domestic hot water supply and natural gas, and the devices for shared distribution.

We are aware that this deadline transposes a specific deadline through Directive 2018/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 amending Directive 2012/27 / EU on energy efficiency, published on 21.12.2018, but we reverse note that the Energy Efficiency Act and the Energy Act were amended in March 2020 and the current proposals could have been adopted at an earlier stage and so enable the obligated persons to comply with the current requirements.

The created time lag between October 25th, 2020 and the possible date of the Bill entering into force in 2021 leads to unnecessary double costs for the installation of appropriate measuring tool.

1.2. The Bulgarian Industrial Association has repeatedly insisted on providing a financial mechanism for the implementation of the way chosen by the state to achieve the national cumulative goal under Art. 7 of Directive 2012/27 / EU with a widened variety of alternative measures (last opinion on the topic from 01.11.2019 - https://www.bia-bg.com/standpoint/view/26151/).

1.3. We welcome an emphasis on the possibility for obligated persons to provide energy efficient services and in cooperation with energy efficient service providers (ESCOs), the reporting of ESCO contracts not only through the contractual guaranteed level of energy efficiency improvement, but also through another agreed criterion related to energy performance, as well as the removal of certain restrictions on persons performing energy efficiency inspections (§45, §49, §41 of the LAS).

2. Specific proposals

2.1. We propose that §36, item 2 of the LAS be removed.

Reasons: through item 2 of §36 an additional obligation is introduced for the persons performing energy efficiency inspection to submit the report on the performed inspection to the Agency for Sustainable Energy Development. Such an action is unnecessary, because due to the requirements of Art. 55 of the Energy Efficiency Act, the persons performing energy efficiency inspection shall provide the necessary information for their performed activities of to the Agency by a model approved by the Executive Director.

2.2. In §42 of the LAS to introduce an additional new point 1. The point should be replaced by a comma and the text should state “including by the sense of Art. 3 of the Electronic Document and Electronic Certification Services Act”. The current items 1 and 2 follow as 2 and 3, respectively.

Reasons: §42 of the Amendments Act provides in Art. 60, para. 5 the documents issued by the director of the Agency for Sustainable Energy Development - the certificate for entry in the register or the motivated written refusal for entry, to be electronic documents. The electronic access and submission of the necessary requirements will also benefit for the equal access to all interested parties in the process.

2.3. In §43 of the LAS we propose that point 4 be removed.

Reasons: The deadline set in the LAS from December 15 of the current year for submission of annual reports for management of energy efficiency activities is practically impossible to keep, given that it must contain an analysis of the energy consumption, databases for monthly production and consumption by types of energy - by the owners of enterprises and industrial systems (Art. 63, para. 2 of the Energy Act). The shortened deadline for submission of the report will cover incomplete periods, respectively - inaccurate and inadequate information, which will not serve the goals.

2.4. In §52 of the LAS we propose adding a new item 3 with the following text “a new paragraph 4 is created “the transfers under para. 3 shall also be carried out through the mechanisms of the stock exchange”.

Reasons: According to a report from the Agency for Sustainable Energy Development on the progress in meeting the individual goals of debtors for the period 2017-2019, the cumulative default amounts to 4429.93 GWh. At the same time, in the List of holders of active certificates for energy savings, according to Art. 75, para. 3, item 2 of EEA, who have given consent for publication, the amount of the certificates available for use are in the amount of 468.38 GWh.

The predominant part of the non-obligated persons holding certificates for energy savings are state-owned enterprises or enterprises with predominant state ownership, municipalities and municipal enterprises. From this point of view, it is appropriate to ensure a transparent and market-based approach to the acquisition / transfer of energy savings certificates by debtors, through the mechanisms of stock exchange trading through the Stock Exchange.

In connection with all the above, we urge you to take into account the expressed suggestions.

WITH RESPECT,

RADOSVET RADEV

Chairman of the Board of BIA