Energy communities, energy cooperatives, energy clusters

• Law No. 4513/2018

Law No.4513/ 2018 introduced the concept of Energy Communities. Greece had no previous experience on such entities and for the first time a comprehensive framework that regulated the establishment and operation of Energy Communities was introduced.

Any person, legal entity of public law, private legal entity, regional and local administration authority can be member of an Energy Community (art.2 Law No.4513/2018).

An Energy Community should be comprised of at least 5 persons/ legal entities of public law/ private legal entities. The minimum number is decreased to two members (local administration authorities) for island communities with a population below 3,100 residents (art.2 Law No.4513/2018). Aim of the Energy Communities is the promotion of RES and CHP, energy efficiency and sustainable transport (art.4 Law No.4513/2018).

Since the introduction of Law 4513 /2018, Energy Communities were expected to be one of the “vehicles” for RES promotion on a local scale.
For that reason, Energy Communities are eligible for support under the Investment Law and can take part in EU co-funded projects and are eligible for virtual net-metering.
Energy Communities are also eligible for Feed-In Premium and Feed-In Tarif. Apart from that, they can still take part in RES tenders under favourable conditions. However, restrictions are expected to be introduced. More specifically, almost all Energy Communities (apart from Energy Communities consisting of more than 60 members and having regional/ municipal administrative authorities as members) are obliged from 2021 onwards to take part in tenders, even for PV plants with capacity below 1MW.
Furthermore, their applications for a preliminary connection agreement were prioritised (art.11 Law No.4513/2018). However, those incentives are gradually abolished. Priority for a preliminary grid connection agreement stopped in March 2020.
Finally, a support scheme for Energy Communities was foreseen in 2019 but it is not expected to be introduced anymore.

• Energy communities, energy cooperatives, energy clusters   : Energy communities