December 14 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian ministry of innovation said it is inviting comments on a procedure for the disbursement of 200 million levs ($108.7 million/102.25 million euro) in grants for investments in renewable energy and battery storage projects.
Interested parties may submit comments until January 12, the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.
You can download the 2023 Renewable energy in Bulgaria report here
The funding is part of the EU's economic recovery package NextGenerationEU and is funded out of Bulgaria's EU-approved national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).
It is designed to assist companies to develop small solar photovoltaic (PV) installations of up to 1 MW along with local battery storage units, both for own use, as part of efforts to decarbonise the private sector and render it less dependent on the open energy market. Grant beneficiaries will not be able to feed back to the grid and trade in the facility's power output.
The financing will be directed to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), small firms with up to 499 staff and mid-sized businesses with a headcount of up to 1,500. Individual grant sizes will vary between 100,000 levs and 1 million levs. Co-financing is in the range of 35% to 50%, depending on the region where the project will be based and the enterprise category.
Most sectors of the Bulgarian economy are eligible for the funding, except agriculture, forestry, aquaculture and fishing, production and distribution of electric and thermal energy and of gas fuels, financial and insurance activities, and some segments of the food and beverage manufacturing industries. Companies in which the state owns over 25% of the equity or voting rights will not be eligible for the grant either.
The renewables grant under the RRP is one of the most eagerly awaited upcoming mechanisms in support of local business, with the renewables sector seeing an upsurge of investment interest in the Southeast European (SEE) region against the background of the energy supply crisis caused by the Ukraine war and the EU's climate policy initiatives.
Bulgaria aims to achieve a minimum 27.09% share of renewables in its gross energy consumption over the next decade, under its Integrated Energy and Climate Plan for 2021-2030.
($ = 0.9682 euro)