New Legislative Act: COVID-19 in the energy sector in Greece9 April 2020

Extensions of deadlines and duration of licences

1.1) The following deadlines and licence periods are extended by six months:

• The duration of installation licences and final grid connection offers for RES or combined heat and power (“CHP”) stations which expire on or before 30 June 2020; and
• RES stations which were selected to receive operating support through the competitive bidding process,¹ which included a deadline for the commencement of trial operation by 30 June 2020 in order to maintain their operating support price.

1.2) A four-month extension is granted to the following:

• Installation licences and final grid connection offers for RES or CHP stations which would expire between 1 July until 31 December 2020;
• RES stations with operating support agreements obtained through the competitive bidding process² which are required to have started trial operation between 1 July 2020 and 31 December 2020;
• The entry into force (1 January 2021) of the new reference tariffs³⁴ regarding onshore windfarms which receive a fixed tariff or received an operating aid agreement in 2016 without participating in a competitive bidding process and will start trial or normal operation from 1 January 2021. Also, only for 2020, the entry into force (1 January 2021) of the reference tariffs set out in the decision issued by the Minister of Environment and Energy setting the reference tariffs for photovoltaic stations which commence operation from the first day of the calendar year following the year the decision entered into force;⁵ and
• The deadline of 30 September 2020 for the commencement of operation of those RES or CHP stations which signed a power purchase agreement on or before 31 December 2015 according to article 12 of Law 3468/2006, but have not entered into operation (trial or normal) (i) up to and including 31 March 2019 for windfarms, small hydroelectric stations and biomass/biogas RES stations and (ii) up to and until 31 December 2017 for all the remaining RES stations including photovoltaic stations. These RES stations would fall into the operating aid support scheme of Law 4414/2016 but would be exempted from the obligation to participate in a competitive bidding process provided that they entered into operation (normal or trial) by 30 September 2020.

1.3) A two-month extension deadline is granted to RES and CHP stations for the acceptance of their final grid connection and the submission of the relevant guarantee letter to the competent operator, if the expiry date falls within the time period from the entry into force of the Legislative Act until 30 June 2020.