ANALYSIS - Communist-era Mindset Means Official Support For Orthodox vs Alternative Energy Projects in SEEurope

Industry experts agree that the main obstacle to government support for alternative projects is the fact that most government energy officials in the region were trained in orthodox energy concepts.

“A clerk who has seen wind turbines and photovoltaic panels only on picture, cannot devise a strategy for alternative energy. They cannot make forecasts and therefore avoid pursuing targets,” the chairman of Bulgaria’s Association of Producers of Ecological Energy, Velizar Kiriakov, told SeeNews.

Almost all countries in the region have plans to meet around 10% of their energy consumption from renewables in the middle term but few projects to support these plans.

On the other hand, almost every country has expressed readiness to become part of the so-called nuclear renaissance – with Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Albania on the list.

Southeast Europe’s nuclear predilection fits in with a global pro-nuclear mood. While countries like Germany and Italy hesitantly reconsider nuclear power after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, countries like India see nuclear power as a panacea for their energy woes.

“Looking at the situation with the Czech [CEZ] asking for (environmental impact assessment) EIA for Temelin 3 and 4, Slovak [plans for] Mochovce 3 and 4, plus Bohunice 3, Hungary’s  Paks 5, Slovenia - Krsko 2 and Bulgaria -Belene, is pretty good proof,” Ales John, director general of Nuclear Research Institute Rez, told SeeNews in a written statement.

Southeast Europe, largely part of the former Soviet-dominated Communist bloc, except for Turkey and Greece, faces an annual energy deficit of about 15 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), according to Bulgaria's state power company. Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant allowed the country to cover more than 70% of the electricity deficit of its neighbours until it closed a second pair of 440-MW nuclear reactors as a condition for joining the European Union in 2007.

It is obvious that for the time being nuclear power plants have no rivals in the region, Alexander Penchev, managing director of majority British-owned green energy firm ESD Bulgaria, told SeeNews.

John, however, warned that it was not realistic for impoverished countries like Albania, where Italy's power utility Enel is looking into nuclear opportunities, to host a nuclear power plant.

“It is a very dangerous nonsense. Generally speaking, a country without adequate infrastructure cannot operate a NPP,” John said.

Meanwhile, wind power projects are the fastest growing energy sector in the world and although wind capacities in southeast Europe are still far less than in western Europe, the region attracts investors.

Production capacity in CEE is pegged to grow by 33% annually to 7.5 gigawatts by 2015, according to industry predictions.

Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania are the most advanced countries in terms of alternative power projects in SEEurope, Penchev said.

However, government support for microenergy projects is only on paper, he added.

Although Bulgaria offers a purchase price for photovoltaic parks of up to 782 levs ($578.8/426 euro) per megawatthour (MWh), compared to 12.68 levs per MWh generated by the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, the state provides a lot of hidden subsidies to thermal power plants and Kozloduy in the form of early retirement, food and rehabilitation aid, and direct state subsidies, that are not included in the purchase price, said Kiriakov.

However, Kiriakov is optimistic that all energy majors operating in the region, including Enel, EVN, E.ON and CEZ, will turn to microenergy projects in the short term along with macroenergy facilities, which will become more of a problem in former communist countries. Outdated coal-fired plants in the region are facing strict environmental thresholds in Bulgaria and Romania, which have already joined the European Union, and will likely do so in all other countries in the region that apply for membership of the bloc.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)