Ministry of Mining and Energy published on 21st January, long awaited draft of the Amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (RESA) with purpose to push forward further investments in RES sector by creating better legal framework for development of new projects.
Initial adoption of the RESA was welcomed by the investors with high enthusiasm, skyrocketing the number of requests for securing connection to the transmission grid to 17,000 MW of new capacities (in comparison total installed capacity of Republic of Serbia at the moment is 8,000 MW) which led in the end to the suspension of all new procedures by EMS.
The main argument for this was that number of requests has led to the endangerment of the stability of transmission system of Republic of Serbia, as well position of guarantee producer EPS due to several very controversial solutions of the RESA including obligation of the EPS to bear the balance responsibility in full for all renewable energy producers, and right to priority access to transmission/distribution system for each renewable energy producers.
This initiated the discussion between key stakeholders Ministry of Mining and Energy, EMS and EPS which led to the draft of the proposed amendments.
The public debate will be opened until 9th February, and all interested parties can provide their suggestions to the Ministry of Mining and Energy on the e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Most important changes to the RESA include:
1.EPS (guaranteed supplier) will bear balance responsibility only for the RES power plants with incentives
The biggest change introduced by the Amendments to RESA is that EPS will bear balancing responsibility only for the power plants which receives incentives in form of market premium and feed in tariffs. Other producers will have to regulated their balance responsibility in accordance with the Energy Act and operating rules of electricity market.
Market Premium users will pay for balancing services to EPS a percentage of the offered price per produced MWh.
2. Organization of Auctions
Ministry of Energy will be now in charge with determining the maximum price for the auctions and feed in tariffs per MWh instead of Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia. The idea is to centralize the auctions process in one authority instead of two for the sake of efficiency.
3. Priority Access to Transmission/Distribution/Closed Distribution System compiling a ranking list and filling the quota
Priority access to the transmission, distribution and closed distribution system is now limited only for small power plants up to 400 kW for the beginning, and from 1st January 2026 up to 200 kW. This was implemented to harmonize RESA with EU standards for priority access.
4. Request for additional capacities
Most controversial provision of the proposed amendments act is right of the EMS to request from the developers to secure additional capacities on the territory of Republic of Serbia capable to provide system services of regulation of frequencies and power exchange, as precondition for connection of power plant to the transmission system. EMS can request additional capacities in the event if it estimates that connection of the new RES power plant could endanger functioning of electro-energy system of Republic of Serbia, and includes conventional sources, and batteries.
5. Limitation of prosumers to 10MW of capacity
Considering the number of transmission connection requests, the Ministry of Energy and Mining has decided to propose limiting prosumers to the distribution grid exclusively, hence stipulating that maximum installed power of prosumer is 10MW.
This text is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
By Nemanja Providzalo, Senior Associate, SOG Law Firm