On 25 July 2024, the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy closed the open discussion on the terms and conditions for the upcoming battery energy storage system (BESS) tender, deciding that more than 3000 MWh will be funded by grants from the EU’s Recovery Resilience Facility.
1. Expected Tender Requirements
The BESS tender is part of Bulgaria’s RESTORE Project, which aims to provide funding for constructing and putting into operation at least 3000 MWh in battery storage capacity to enhance the balancing of the electricity system. Each enterprise can bid for up to BGN 148,642,080 in grant support. The maximum grant intensity is 50% of the allowed costs but not more than BGN 371,607.70 per 1 MWh.
Corporate eligibility require that entities meet the following criteria of having:
- A seat within the European economic zone;
- An UBO duly announced and registered;
- Secured a 3% bid bond calculated on the requested grant amount;
- Equity of more than BGN 6m for BESS between 20 MWh and 50 MWh and BGN 10m for BESS above 50 MWh;
- Budgets for each of several predefined categories.
- On the technical side, each entity must:
- Request for a minimum capacity of 10MWac;
- Have a technical advisor with previous experience in either a combined project for production and storage or standalone storage project with capacity of at least 20 MW;
- Have storage time of more than two hours;
- Comply with the parameters for securing reserves for primal regulation of the frequency and/or automatic secondary regulation of the frequency and power;
- Have a BESS design.
The maximum capacity an applicant and linked enterprises can request funding for is 600 MWh.
As of the application date, the entity must secure a valid grid connection statement or agreement with an electrical system operator (ESO) with the putting into operation date being no later than 31 March 2026.
The expected application period is three months from announcement date, which should be in August or September 2024.
The projects approved for grant funding must be in operation by 31 March 2026.
2. Permitting framework
While full permitting is not required for the purposes of participating in the tender, the process will be taken seriously if developers aim to manage the 2026 deadline.
Normally, a battery storage itself is an installation, but there are various hypotheses when defining it may become more complicated and result in BESS being treated as a construction.
Normally, after land being secured (by way of acquisition or rights in rem being established) zoning must be changed to meet this new land designation. Only if battery storage is considered as an installation (and not a construction), zoning would not be required.
In a nutshell and depending on the technical solution for BESS installation and grid connection, BESS permitting procedures will mainly follow the one for solar (with less complications in terms of land specifics), namely:
- Change of the master and detailed development plans;
- Change of the land designation though agriculture commission;
- Receiving an Installation or Construction Permit;
- Receiving an environmental clearance;
- Obtaining a Grid Connection Agreement;
- Obtaining a use permit (in the cases where construction permit is required for BESS).
For more information on how to compete for a BESS tender in Bulgaria, contact your CMS client partner or these CMS experts: Kostadin Sirleshtov, Borislava Piperkova, Vaska Solakova and Dian Boev.
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