More flexible “shared” solar panels – End to the 100% consent requirement in apartment buildings

The Ministry of Environment and Energy is seeking to boost net metering in the residential sector, with the aim of enabling as many Greek households as possible to harness solar energy and dramatically reduce their electricity bills.

To this end, the Ministry has included a relevant reform in REPowerEU, with a series of measures to promote energy sharing, self-consumption and Energy Communities. As regards energy sharing—that is, the ability to use “shared” photovoltaic systems—legislative action will be taken so that groups of households (around 4 to 5) can jointly install a solar system and offset their consumption with the energy it produces.

In particular, to make the relevant framework as flexible as possible, it will stipulate that households will not have to live in the same building, but in the same city block.

With the same intervention, the Ministry of Environment and Energy (YPEN) will amend the existing institutional framework, which stipulates that installing a photovoltaic system on the roof of an apartment building requires the consent of 100% of the owners. Although this percentage will be reduced, the “green light” of the majority of owners will still be required. This means that it is not expected to fall below 50%+1.

It is worth noting that YPEN has already introduced “shared” photovoltaic systems into national legislation through collective self-consumption, which was established by Law . 5037/2023, passed last spring. In that case, however, the “shared” system can only be used by (at least two) consumers located in the same building.

With YPEN’s new intervention, this restriction will remain in place only for businesses, for which collective self-consumption will only be available to (at least two) companies housed in the same building. Also, for households, the requirement for consent from 100% of the owners to install a system on an apartment building’s rooftop will remain in force.

The Ministry’s aim is to implement the new measures during the first quarter of the year. Also, to promote net metering, at a later stage (by the first quarter of 2025), it plans to create a Self-Consumers Registry to make it easier for them to switch to another supplier. Over the same timeframe, YPEN plans to develop a dedicated Help desk to support the development of Energy Communities.

Among other things, Energy Communities enable a group of household consumers to use virtual net metering by installing the photovoltaic system anywhere in the country. The Help desk will provide technical assistance with setting up similar collective initiatives, guiding interested parties through every step of the relevant process.

At the same time, YPEN aims to issue the Ministerial Decision by March, which will “activate” all the self-consumption schemes established by Law . 5037/2023—such as collective self-consumption. Another scheme that was established, and which applies to businesses, is net billing (net-billing).

More grid “space” for self-consumption

At the same time, the Ministry plans to increase the capacity on the distribution network reserved exclusively for self-consumption by households, businesses and farmers. To this end, it will expand an existing provision so that 10 MW will be reserved per transformer at each network substation, rather than per substation. This is expected to increase the available electricity “space” for self-consumption to more than 3 GW, up from 2 GW currently.

The allocation of this “space” among the eligible categories will also change. Businesses will be the biggest beneficiaries, with 50% allocated to them, or more than 1,5 GW. This will provide sufficient capacity to ensure the smooth rollout of the “photovoltaics for businesses” program as well.

The remaining 50% will bring Energy Communities into the picture, with 30% allocated to them together with self-producers in the secondary and tertiary sectors. 40% will be allocated to residential systems and 30% to farmers who produce their own energy. In addition, in all cases, the maximum generation capacity of the systems they can install will increase to 100 kW. The existing cap of 10 kW of generation capacity will remain only for residential systems.

Source: Insider