The Green Tank approved the amendment to the financing program for energy communities, first published in September 2023. However, the organization sent its comments and recommendations to the Special Service for Just Development Transition (EYDAM).
The amendment is of a technical nature and concerns the change of the threshold in the efficiency criterion (from 0.6 to 0.35). This is due to the previous inclusion of costs for grid connection, as well as the consultancy and design services, as part of the eligible costs, which leads to the need to reduce this threshold.
Both this amendment and the two amendments to the original call that preceded it, make it clear that EYDAM is trying to move a program of key importance for the lignite areas. For this reason, The Green Tank has approved the proposed amendment.
However, it is of great concern that “to date no funding proposals have been submitted under this call”, as recorded in the amendment, despite the fact that 11 months have passed since the first call was issued.
On this basis, The Green Tank has submitted two recommendations:
1. The Monitoring Committee should be informed in detail about the exact reasons preventing the submission of funding proposals. In this, mayors of the eligible municipalities, as well as other relevant authorities (e.g. HEDNO, DG Regio, etc.) should be invited.
2. A new call for battery self-production projects by citizen and SME energy communities should be urgently announced, thus broadening the categories of beneficiaries which currently include only local authorities and relevant bodies.
You can read all the comments submitted by Green Tank in the context of our participation in the Monitoring Committee here in Greek.
