Energy - Water

Recent Articles

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  02.10.2023

  Bulgaria

  Race for Leadership: Energy Efficiency and Renewables Fund Seeks New Manager

  The Bulgarian Energy Efficiency and Renewable Sources Fund (EERSF) is currently in search of a new manager for a 5-year term, in compliance with local laws. Only legal entities or associations thereof are eligible to participate.EERSF administers the financial resources received by the Republic of Bulgaria in accordance with the current legislative framework and agreements with major donors.EERSF is structured as a self-sustaining commercial entity that focuses on facilitating investments in energy efficiency and promoting the development of a functioning energy efficiency market in Bulgaria. The...

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  05.09.2023

  Oman

  The New Oman Social Protection Fund Law - Key Changes

  The Sultanate of Oman as a welfare state has for long operated under the old Public Authority for Social Insurance (PASI) Law (Royal Decree 72/9). Recently however, Oman has enacted the novel Social Protection Fund Law (SPFL) (Royal Decree 52/2023) in an attempt to enhance its social welfare framework by creating a single and unified social protection fund that improves financing and provides a wide range of benefits to workers and their families. This article provides an overview of some of the key aspects of the new law and compares it with its repealed predecessor, by highlighting the key impacts...

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  03.07.2023

  Bulgaria

  Bulgarian regulator sets new reference prices in expectation for a Contract for premium reform

  On 30 June 2023, the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) published a Decision regarding the determination of Feed-In Tariffs for electricity produced by renewable energy sources, which updates Feed-In Tariffs to include electricity produced by biomass and determines the premiums for renewable energy producers with an overall installed capacity of 500 kW and exceeding 500 kW for the regulatory period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024. Through this Decision, the EWRC has determined the estimated market price (i.e. reference price) for producers of electricity from solar energy to be BGN...

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  25.05.2023

  International

  North Sea Strikes and Force Majeure

  The latest in a series of strikes by oil & gas workers in the North Sea continues to test the operation and efficacy of force majeure (“FM”) provisions in oil and gas industry contracts.There is no single “industry standard” FM clause, and so each contractual FM clause must be carefully considered in its contractual context to determine how it operates.With many North Sea oil and gas industry contracts based on industry model forms, such as LOGIC and OEUK (formerly OGUK), we consider below the impact of the recent (and proposed) North Sea strike actions.  A review...

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  20.04.2023

  United Kingdom

  DESNZ consults on further reforms to the CfD regime

  IntroductionOn 17 April 2023 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (“DESNZ”) launched a call for evidence (the “Consultation”) to consider ways in which the Contract for Difference (“CfD”) auction allocation process for renewable energy projects in the UK could capture wider, non-price, factors in the value of renewable projects. This Consultation follows a number of wider CfD reforms which address a range of variations to the CfD Allocation Rounds (“AR”). For more information on the recent development, please see our commentary on the AR5...

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  13.04.2023

  Europe

  EU reform of electricity market design: the Commission's proposals

  On 14 March 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) published its legislative proposals to reform the EU electricity market in a two-fold way:by amending Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (REMIT) to enhance the toolbox available to monitor and enforce market integrity and transparency (“REMIT Proposal”), andby amending the Regulation (EU) 2019/943 (“Electricity Regulation”) and Directives Nos (EU) 2018/2001 (“RED II”) and (EU) 2019/944 (“Electricity Directive”) to reform the electricity market...

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