Albania over the delayed development of the Photovoltaic Market

Posted By: EuroElektra Sh.p.k In: Renewable Energy On: Tuesday, April 9, 2019 Comment: 0 Hit: 7796

Tirana, 08 April 2019

          Currently the Albania's ecological footprint in the development of energy-generating capacity through solar utilization is almost insignificant compared to neighboring countries which, despite the different economic development, have deserved care of achieving the European Commission's 2020 target, which aims to increase the specific weight of energy produced from renewable sources. Despite the fact that Albania has an established target among the highest in the region on this issue, the steps taken cannot be considered sufficient. Albania is the only country in the South West Balkans that has not approved the Feed-In tariff for photovoltaic energy to open the way for the exchange of electricity in the net-metering power network.


Indeed, the Albanian energy sector has a lot of real potential to have a sustainable development of the country, but constantly undifferentiated exploitation by the lack of diversity of energy sources creates dependence on imports. The medium- or long-term drafting plans for energy resource management and incentives for new forms of energy production, would create independence in this sector and also positively affect the country's sustainable development.

What is noteworthy, is the fact that Albania's electricity production sector sees only dependence on hydroelectric energy. In fact the Dependence from a single source, which is so vulnerable to climate change, directly threatens the country's internal security by being dependent on other states.

Seeing the amount of solar radiation and the average annual sunshine, it is noticed that Albania possesses a very high potential of solar energy which can be easily used for the production of electricity, which thus reduces the risk of dependence on the neighboring states because of the single use of hydroelectric power.

 It is known that fluctuations in energy consumption during day and night are variable for both household and business customers. In certain time distances when there is low energy consumption, is formed an energy surplus which, when it’s injected into the network, would be spent by the nearest consumer, avoiding losses.The energy producer who injected the surplus would be compensated ,by subtracting from the bill the amount in kW / month when its plant is under-production due to atmospheric conditions. 

Since 2017 it has been declared that the approval of the facilitating procedure for the exchange of energy in the network will be realized within one year from the moment of approval of the law, a declaration that was not fulfilled, while there was no real argument for this delay.

The reason for this delay are also the claims of the Electricity Distribution Operator (OSHEE) which pretends that the current low voltage power distribution network is not ready to withstand the connection of the photovoltaic plant for the auto-consumption with the grid.

    All this delayed process since two years has led Mr. Elton Çekrezi, Executive Director at EuroElektra, to take the initiative to collect the Solar Energy Renewable Energy Interest Group from all companies which operate in the Photovoltaic Market in Albania with full transparency without any competition differences.

This interest group represented by Mr. Anduel Çekrezi, lawyer at EuroElektra, on 8 February 2019 made an official request for a meeting with the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Mrs.Belinda Balluku regarding the "Approval of Guidelines for Small Renewable Energy Projects", a letter signed by all entities currently operating in the photovoltaic market in Albania!

This request was welcomed by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, and on March 21 was made an interpellance with the Minister Mrs. Belinda Balluku and leaders of OSHEE. The Interest Group submitted sufficient technical arguments that reject all the claims and skepticisms of OSHEE, and that protect the fact that photovoltaic systems are fully integrative in the current power grid without the need for a capacity expansion or changes in the energy infrastructure.

During this interpellation, Minister Balluku issued an order to take immediate steps to set up a working group consisting of the Ministry of Energy, OSHEE, ERE, OST and representatives of the Interest Group.

On 03 April, 2019, Mrs. Minister signed the order to create a working group for the drafting of the terms of methodology and guidance according to the provisions of law 7/2017, article 15 "net energy measurement scheme" with 9 members, of which 2 representatives are from the Ministry of Energy, 2 representatives from OSHEE, 1 from the ERE, 1 from the OST and 3 from the Interest group, which will be represented by Mr. Anduel Cekrezi Lawyer at EuroElektra.

Among them, will be held the first meeting on 10 April, to discuss the draft proposed by the Ministry of Energy, a draft that should be completed on 01 May 2019!

This group received direct support from Mr. Shalsi, Minister of State for Enterprise Protection, Mr. Nikolin Jaka, President of Tirana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and from all Albanian media groups.

The interest group will continue to inform all the public opinion regarding the progress of this process, the developments on methodology and guidance, with the main aim of the potential economic development of the photovoltaic energy sector in Albania!

 Source Information : EuroElektra Sh.p.k

Comments

Leave your comment