Renewable Energy Industry in Bulgaria: Challenges to Its Development
Renewable Energy Industry in Bulgaria: Challenges to Its Development

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the dynamic development of renewable energy sources (RES) in recent years in Bulgaria and analyzes various problems confronting its integration in the Bulgarian electrical grid system, including: the separation of the Electricity System Operator (ESO) from the National Electric Company (NEC), which has been postponed for years, and which, if done, might put a priority on investments in the electrical grid; the failure to introduce the EU Third Liberalization Package, the aim of which is to set the system entirely on market principles; regulations that primarily favour the large and medium RES projects, while leaving a comparatively limited field for genuine local entrepreneurship; lack of possibilities for investments in household installations; political-economic interdependences and lack of transpa-rency, which have characterized a large share of the investment projects. The article devotes attention to the question why environmental organizations, paradoxically and unlike their counterparts in Western Europe, are among the fiercest opponents of RES development in Bulgaria.

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