Grid too narrow for all RES
The Ministry of Environment and Energy is setting ambitious goals in the revised National Plan for Energy and Climate (ESEK), regarding the penetration of renewable energy sources, which are in danger of remaining on paper because they require a huge development of networks.
RES investments by public and private entities that have already been implemented cannot be connected to the network of ADMIE and DEDDIE, while others being planned have had to be frozen.
The basic scenario, which the ministry is thought to be considering, envisages the participation of RES in 2030 electricity production at close to 80%, up from a target of 65% in the existing ESEK, as well as over 50% in cooling and heating and close to 30% in transport.
The target for total RES capacity in 2030 from 18.9 gigawatts is upgraded to 28-30 GW and the target for energy storage from 1.5 GW to between 5 and 8 GW. In practice, this means that in less than eight years, RES projects with a total capacity of 18-25 GW will have to be hooked up to the country’s grid – i.e. more than double the existing projects installed in the last two decades.
In order for the system to be able to absorb this energy, investments in the ADMIE and DEDDIE networks of the order of 10 billion euros should be implemented, including the upgrades planned for international interconnections. The achievement of the ambitious goals will also depend on the speed of development of the networks, with the managers (ADMIE and DEDDIE) having expressed their strong skepticism to the competent committee for the ESEK review, judging on a realistic basis that the ministry does not seem to take it into account in its planning.
Infrastructure projects run at much lower speeds than RES projects, so that today this imbalance is assessed by the market and all relevant bodies, including the ministry, as the most important obstacle to the development of RES.
Renewables projects are queuing up at ADMIE to get conditions for definitive connection to the grid, while at DEDDIE, applications for project connections are dismissed due to grid saturation.
