Greece announces drastic FIT cuts

13 May 2013

The Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change (YPEKA) announced on Friday the new feed-in-tariffs (FITs) for photovoltaic systems. Over 40% tariff reduction has been signed off, both for ground-mounted and roof installations. This will be valid as of June 1.

According to the new ministerial decision, photovoltaic parks of up to 100 KW, which have been online since February 2013, will receive €95 per MWh of generated electricity. In August of 2012, YPEKA had announced the tariff for these installations to be €171.9/MWh. Thus, the new tariff announced on Friday corresponds to a 44.7% reduction.

In addition, in August of 2012 the tariff for PV systems larger than 100 KW, which were connected to the main electricity grid from February 2013 onwards was set at €225/MWh. Now the Greek ministry YPEKA has reduced it to €120/MWh. This is a 46.6% reduction.

Meanwhile, photovoltaic parks of any capacity connected since February 2013 to the autonomous electricity grids of the Greek islands will receive a tariff of €100/MWh, according to Friday's ministerial statement.

However, these tariffs will also keep reducing gradually. Thus, from February 2014 onwards PV systems of up to 100 KW, which are connected to the main Greek electricity grid, will receive €90/MWh. Furthermore, solar systems larger than 100 KW also connected to the main grid will get €115/MWh, while PV installations of any capacity connected to the smaller autonomous grids will obtain €95/MWh.

YPEKA's reasons

YPEKA argues the new FITs are necessary to reduce the deficit of the Renewable Energy Sources Fund, which is used to pay renewable energy producers in Greece. The deficit at the end of February was €301.7 million.

The Greek ministry furthermore stated that Greece's 2020 national PV installations target of 2.2 GW has already been met. Therefore, YPEKA argues this was an additional argument to reduce FITs.

Looking ahead, as of 2015, feed-in-tariffs will be calculated based on a mathematical formula, which takes into account electricity prices of the wholesale market.

FITs for roof projects slashed

Meanwhile, rooftop solar installations were not excluded from YPEKA's FITs update. In detail, this category installations that have been connected to the grid since February 2013 will receive €125/MWh. This is a 47.6% price reduction compared to the February 2013 tariff introduced in August 2012, when tariffs were also reduced significantly. Moreover, FITs for roof installations will reduce gradually down to €80/MWh until August of 2019.

The following table details the new tariffs for roof projects announced by the Greek ministry:

 
The tariffs announced on Friday are valid as of June 1. Nevertheless, there will be some exceptional cases in which the new tariffs will not apply. Such is the case of solar parks that had secured their FIT before the March 12 deadline. This particular March round had led to an impressive growth of new photovoltaic installations in Greece as reported by pv magazine. And this is also the case of PV parks of up to 100 KW, built by farmers who can keep the old tariffs should they connect their projects by June 30 of this year.