26.04.2021.
On 20 April 2021 the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on the Use of Renewable Energy Sources (“the Law“). The Law comes into force on 30 April 2021.
Introduction
The Law regulates the use of energy from renewable sources, goals of the use of energy from renewable sources, the method of determining the share of renewable energy sources of the Republic of Serbia in the gross final energy consumption, integration of energy from renewable sources into the market, incentive systems for electricity production from renewable sources, guarantees of origin of electricity, production of electricity from renewable sources for own consumption, use of renewable energy sources in the field of heat and transport, special procedures related to the construction and connection of energy facilities using renewable energy sources, basics of cooperation mechanisms with other countries in the field of renewable energy sources, supervision over the implementation of the Law, as well as other issues of importance for renewable energy sources.
The provisions of the law governing the field of energy shall apply to all issues in the field of energy related to renewable energy sources that are not regulated by this Law.
Renewable energy sources are non-fossil energy sources such as: watercourses, biomass, wind, solar, renewable hydrogen, biogas, landfill gas, gas from sewage treatment plants, geothermal energy sources and other renewable energy sources (“RES“);
The Law is set to achieve in particular the following goals: environmental protection, the fight against climate change, reducing costs for citizens, energy transition, as well as simplifying and speeding up of relevant procedures.
The Law with relevant bylaws should create legal certainty for investment in three key energy sectors that are important for the field of RES: the electricity sector, the heating and cooling sector and the transport sector.
One of the new institutes introduced by the Law is the institute of Strategic Partner.
Strategic partnership
If it is established that the application of the system of incentives for electricity production established by the Law did not sufficiently provide for new production capacities for electricity production from renewable sources that are necessary to achieve the planned growth dynamics of electricity production from RES and the achieving of national goals defined by the Integrated National Energy and Climate plan or when new generation capacities for electricity production from RES are needed to achieve the goals of energy transition or the fulfillment of international obligations, on the proposal of the Minister responsible for energy, the Government of the Republic of Serbia (“Government“) may decide to implement construction projects, with or without the management and maintenance of the RES plants, by carrying out the selection of a strategic partner (“Decision”).
Power plants that use renewable energy sources (“Power Plant“) are considered to be:
A reversible hydroelectric power plant is not considered a power plant that uses renewable energy sources.
The Decision shall contain in particular:
A strategic partner (“Strategic partner“) may be an entity that will be selected in accordance with the Law to construct a Power Plant to be used for production or to construct a Power Plant and which is obliged to carry out the following actions:
(1) Partially and / or in full finances the Power Plant construction project
or
(2) Mediates in securing or is securing funds from international financial institutions, banks and other sources of financing for the implementation of the project.
In addition to these conditions, the Strategic Partner must perform one or more of the following actions:
The procedure for the selection of a Strategic Partner prescribed by the Law includes:
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