On 21 August 2024, the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy opened a tender procedure for National infrastructure for storage of renewable energy (RESTORE) for granting stand-alone battery energy storage system (BESS) tender funded under the EU’s Recovery Resilience Facility (the “Procedure”).
The deadline for submitting applications will be 17:00 on 21 November 2024. Bids must be submitted electronically only.
The Procedure aims to provide funding for the construction and implementation of at leasta 3000 MWh stand-alone battery storage facility. The total amount of the grant that can be provided under the entire procedure is EUR 590 million (approximately BGN 1.154 billion). Each undertaking can bid for up to EUR 76 million (BGN 148.6) in grant support.
The maximum grant intensity obtainable by each bidder is 50% of allowed costs (i.e. capital expenditures) but not more than EUR 190,000 (BGN 371,000) per 1 MWh in capacity.
Only legal entities established within the European economic zone are eligible to bid and their ultimate beneficial owners must be declared within their relevant company registers.
Eligibility is restricted to applicants (or the shareholders of applicants), which prove equity on their balance sheets of more than BGN 6 million for battery storage projects between 20 MWh and 50 MWh and BGN 10 million for projects above 50 MWh.
Each application should secure a 3% bid bond based on the amount of the grant requested.
On the technical side, each application should:
1. present their investment proposal for a battery storage project with at least 10 MW (AC) capacity.
2. have guaranteed storage-time capacity of more than two hours and must comply with the parameters for securing reserves for prime regulation of the frequency and/or automatic secondary regulation of the frequency and power;
3. understand that the maximum capacity an applicant (and its linked enterprises) can request for funding for is 500 MWh;
4. have a technical advisor with previous experience in either a combined project for production and storage or a standalone storage project with capacity of at least 10 MW for investment proposals between 10 MW and 20 MW and 20 MW for investment proposals above 50 MWh.
For an investment proposal to be eligible for application, the earlier of the procurement of the equipment or the commencement of the construction should have started on or after 25 June 2024.
As of the application date, the entity must secure a valid grid connection statement or agreement with the transmission/distribution grid operator.
The deadline for putting the project into operation is 31 March 2026.
A key requirement is that a conceptual design of the project must be submitted in the application process. The design must be prepared and bear the stamp of a certified Bulgarian designer.
Successful bidders are expected to conclude their grant agreement around January 2025.
Applications will be reviewed and ranked based on the requested grant per MWh (where the lower grant per MWh is ranked higher) and at parity the project with a larger capacity (MWh) will be ranked higher. For bids made at parity, the investment proposal with longer warranty period will be ranked higher. The grants will be released and paid to the successful applicants after the storage systems have bene successfully put into operation.
By Kostadin Sirleshtov, Managing Partner, Borislava Piperkova, Counsel, Vaska Solakova, Senior Associate, and Dian Boev, Associate, CMS
