Numerous investors in small-scale solar power plants in the Republic of Srpska (RS) are left without a guaranteed purchase of electricity produced by their plants, because the quotas for subsidies were met in March this year.
The Energy Regulatory Commission of the Republic of Srpska (RERS) is now rejecting producers because there is no more room for subsidies. Thus, in the last few weeks, requests for incentives for four small solar power plants in Trebinje, 14 small solar power plants in Berkovici, as well as two solar power plants in Teslic, were rejected. The reply from RERS states that, based on the facts available to the Commission, as well as on the confirmation of the incentive system operator, it has been determined that in the system of incentives for electricity production from renewable sources, there are no available quantities of electricity to encourage production from solar power plants in 2021.
RS Government has increased the quantities of electricity from small solar power plants, for which it guarantees the purchase by ten times since 2015, but it is obvious that this cannot meet the demand of investors. Many recognized the construction of small-scale solar power plants in RS as a good chance to make money. The guaranteed purchase price, which with an incentive amounts to around 0.1 euros/kWh of electricity produced for a period of 15 yeras, gives a guarantee that the investment will surely pay off. This attracted numerous investors, but the problem is that a large number of them have used loopholes in the law to avoid paying concessions by building hundreds of small, separate power plants instead of one large one, each just a few kW below the legal threshold for paying concessions.
