What does new Law on energy bring?

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Long-awaited Law on energy which implements total implementation of the Thirdenergy package of EU, was finally adopted at the Assembly of Serbia December29. The Law should provide bigger protection of buyers as well as better termsfor investors in energy.

Gas and electricity market opening

The new law keeps the provision on entire opening ofelectricity and gas as of January 2015. Based on that, households and small consumerswill be able to choose gas and electricity supplier but they will have guaranteedsupplying.

Lawchanged previous term of public supplying into guaranteed supplying. Procedureof selection of guaranteed supplier at tender is defined as well as a selectionof a spare supplier.

Small electricity buyers, in line with new provisions, will be companieswith less than 50 people and an annual turnover below EUR 10 m which annuallyspend less than 30.000 kWh of electricity and the list of small buyers will bedefined every year by March 31.

Firms which annually spend more than 30.000kWh of electricity will lose as of July 1,2015 the right on guaranteed supplying and will have to find a supplier at themarket.

The Law implements the option of cancellation of electricity priceregulation for guaranteed supplying as of 2017.

Electricity buyers will be entitled to data on their own consumption andsupplier will have to install free phone lines for information to buyers.

The law implements basic also for monitoring of technical and commercial electricityand gas supplying.

Aleksandar Macura, expert for EU policy in energy and climate changes, saysfor our portal that the new Law on energy has been announced as the law whichwill enable increase in investments in energy sector as well as the law which implementsEU heritage into legislation of the Republc of Serbia but that the law still isnot a significant step towards reliable, sustainable and competitive energysector.

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The collocutor of eKapija says it is good that the government at the levelof the law recognized the term of endangered buyer and that the bad news is that it does not seethe way how the market whose reality the package should promote can emerge orefficient protection for an endangered buyer.

Renewable energy sources

As the investors in renewable resources say, the new Law on energy made a significant step inthe sense of legal framework for investing in RES.

As Ana Barnabic, GM at Continental Wind Serbia and representative of theSerbian association for wind energy (SEWEA), says for eKapija, new Law madethree significant improvements.

Our collocutor outlines the new law is a good news for investor since itprovides room to adopt the model of the Contract on the electricity purchasebased on which banks will be able to invest in wind energy.

Compliance with Law on planning and construction

TheNational Alliance for Local Economic Development j (NALED) announcedthat the National Assembly of Serbia accepted the initiative of NALED, USAIDand Economic caucus and adopted amendment which will provide compliance of thenew Law on energy with recently adopted Law on planning and construction. Thus,uninterrupted functioning of mutual procedure for construction permits issuancewill be enabled which will drastically save time of license issuance for atleast 164 days.

S.O.