Bulgaria approves EU-backed grants for EUR 269m of RES projects

Bulgaria has greenlit 249 proposals for the installation of renewable energy and battery storage capacity worth a total of BGN 526 million (USD 293.1m/EUR 268.9m) to receive funding under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).

The Balkan country’s Energy Ministry said this weekend it has completed the evaluation of investment proposals under two procedures aiming to support the deployment of renewable energy plants and batteries. The first call was open to projects with capacities of between 200 kW and 2 MW, while the second one targeted proposals of over 200 kW in size.

Call 1 will award a total grant of BGN 107.5 million to 200 projects, which were selected among 267 proposals that were pre-qualified in the procedure following the initial submission of 327 projects. The winning schemes, valued at nearly BGN 107 million, will enable the construction of 435 MW of renewable power plants and battery energy storage systems (BESS) of 176 MW.

The 67 projects that could not qualify in this funding round will be included in a waitlist with proposals worth more than BGN 44 million, the Energy Ministry said.

Call 2 has a budget of some BGN 427.5 million in state aid. Funds will be disbursed to 49 proposals selected in this category, which was open to projects exceeding 200 kW. The government received 70 proposals and selected 65 to proceed in the qualification round. The remaining 16 will be put on a reserve list.

The winning proposals envisage an investment of almost BGN 419 million. They will facilitate the installation of 2,660 MW of renewable energy parks and 1,000 MW of batteries.

All successful projects, in both calls, should be executed by March 31, 2026.

In addition, a tender is underway to subsidise the construction of at least 3,000 MWh of new energy storage units.

(BGN 1.0 = USD 0.557/EUR 0.511)

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