The Ministerial Decree providing incentives to electricity production from renewable energy sources (The RES Decree) 2016 updates the allocation scheme of incentives to renewable energy other than photovoltaic. The scheme covers wind farms, hydro, biomass and biogas, CSP and other non-photovoltaic renewable energy sources for the year 2016. It maintains the structure of the previous incentive 2012-2015 regime, while decreasing the value of overall incentives available.As in the previous scheme, renewable energy plants may benefit from:All-inclusive tariff, applicable to Plants with capacity up to 500kW; or
- Feed-in tariff, applicable to Plants with capacity up to 500kW which do not opt for the above All-Inclusive Tariff, and Plants with nominal capacity greater than 500kW.
- Incentives are granted either through registry procedure (plants with capacity below 5MW) or tender procedures (reverse auctions; plants with capacity above 5MW).The overall cap on incentives for RES plants remains at €5.8 billion per year.
- The 2019 decree updates the 2016 text to promote renewable energy production over the period 2019-2021.
The Decree of 23 June 2016 is essentially no longer in force for new projects, once the RES 1 Decree entered into force. This new decree became the new standard for accessing incentives for wind, solar, and other mature renewables. While it no longer accepts new entries, the decree remains legally binding for the management and disbursement of 20-year tariffs to plants commissioned during its window of validity.
