The Bulgarian Government and business community hold divergent views on how to meet the country’s renewable energy target of 16 per cent by 2020.

The Economy Ministry is pinning its hopes on four large-scale hydropower plants - Belmeken–Sestrino–Cheira, Batak, Vacha and Dolna Arda - as well as on the international hydropower complexes Silistra – Calarasi and Nikopol – Turnu Magurele.

The industry, on the other hand, urged the Government to work to unlock Bulgaria’s wind power and small hydropower potential. They slammed the Government for offering no support to foster the development of green energy.

Deputy Energy and Economy Minister Valentin Ivanov said the two joint Romanian projects will have a total price tag of about 4.5 billion euro. He was doubtful that the state will manage to meet the initially set deadline of 2015 as both schemes are still in the design phase.

Velizar Kiryakov, chairman of the Bulgarian renewable energy association, said local hydropower projects lack environmental impact assessment, feasibility studies and social commitment to the local population.

The bulk of the sites designated for hydropower facilities are located in the Natura 2000 eco network or in UNESCO protected zones. It has not been estimated how many people will have to be displaced to implement the projects, according to Kiryakov.

Experts say that hydropower projects can no longer benefit from increases in efficiency and so efforts should focus on wind, photovoltaic (PV) and biomass energy.

Some of the main difficulties clean energy investors come across have to do with cumbersome grid-connection procedures and little predictability of the output, said Ivan Zhelyaskov, deputy chairman of Bulgaria’s national power grid operator NEK.

One solution for reducing the logjam of projects waiting to be plugged in is the introduction of preliminary financial guarantees, said Tsonko Tsonev, mayor of the Black Sea town of Kavarna, which has draw keen interest from a couple of renewable energy investors.

Source: Dnevnik,bg