Market Research
The government of Lithuania will consider a new renewable energy development model
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The Ministry of Energy has submitted to the Government a draft Law on Renewable Energy, which proposes a new support model for the promotion of renewable energy sources (RES). This will allow further development of renewable energy, which is one of the most important goals of the state's strategic energy, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Energy. The ministry proposes that the support be continued through auctions, since such a method ensures the lowest price for consumers. Auctions could be involved in various renewable energy technologies for power generation plants. In developing the new support model, the Ministry of Energy followed the EC guidelines, which set out guidelines providing the most effective and cost-effective support for producers of power generation for RES. One of their main principles is to encourage electricity producers to operate on market conditions and to assume the costs of electricity balancing. The new support scheme is already being coordinated with the EC Directorate-General for Competition in the context of the State aid notification procedure and can only be applied after the approval of the Commission. The most important criterion for the winners of the new auctions is the smallest addition to the electricity market price at Nordpool. The new players in the auctions will also have to indicate the amount of electricity they will have to produce and will be able to receive additional revenue through the added bonus at market prices. The intention is that the new NPP auction procedure would be adopted at the Seimas autumn session and come into force in 2019 May 1 It is expected that after approval of this model, the National Control Commission for Prices and Energy (NCC) will announce the first auction in July of the following year, which will allocate a 0.3-Terawathours (TWh) quota.