Meet the Law - Order nº 5/DGEG/2021, of 15th April

On April 15th, within the official website of the Directorate General of Energy and Geology (DGEG) was published Order no. 5/DGEG/2021, of April 15th, which establishes the transition rules for alternative remuneration provided for in Decree-Law no. 35/2013, of February 28th (Decree-Law no. 35/2013) when it concerns only part of the total energy produced in wind power plants with entry into operation staggered over time under successive licences and revokes Order no. 41/DGEG/2020, of August 7th, which regulated the same matter.

This Order applies the rules to the power plants covered by it, referring, namely, the moment of transition and the remuneration to which the over-powering will be subject:
 
a)    The transition occurs on the day following that on which the guaranteed remuneration period is completed, arising from the application of the deadlines provided for in paragraph 1 of article 3 of Decree-Law no. 35/2013.

b)    In situations where the guaranteed remuneration period ceases because the production limit provided for in no. 20 of Annex II of Decree-Law no. 189/88, of May 27th, republished by Decree-Law no. 35/2013, has been reached, the transition occurs at the moment when the production limit is reached;

c)    When the power plant has overpowering licensed under Decree-Law no. 51/2010, of May 20th, the remuneration for the energy of the  shall be the one referred in paragraphs 2 and 3 of article 5 of Decree-Law no. 35/2013, in accordance with the option taken in the decision to adhere to the alternative remuneration regime of that Decree-Law;

d)    When the power plant has overpowering and/or additional energy licensed under Decree-Law no. 94/2014, of June 24th, the applicable remuneration shall be:

i. That set forth in paragraph 1 of article 10 of Decree-Law no. 94/2014, i.e. €60/MWh; or,
ii. That set out in numbers 4 and 5 of article 7 of Order in Council No. 102/2015, of April 7th, as amended by Order in Council No. 43/2019, of January 31st, that is, €45/MWh.

e)    The power of the overpowering and the additional power are allocated proportionally to the installed power in each phase of the park.

The formula presented for calculating the remuneration of the electricity power plants covered remains unchanged in relation to Order no. 41/DGEG/2020 and applies to all electricity power plants that have switched to the alternative regime under the same Order and that now switch to it under Order no. 5/DGEG/2021.

The same order also foresees procedures with a view to transition and invoicing, namely:

a)    The Promoter must provide DGEG with information on certain parameters (installed power; connection power; additional power; declared power; CPI for the month prior to each billing; overpowering; declared power of overpowering and definition of sub-parks and respective powers and transition dates) for billing purposes.

b)    The Promoter shall make the necessary arrangements with the system operator to define the generation SPC that will be allocated to the new metering equipment and communicate the SPCs to the LRS before the start of the transition;

c)    The exploration license holder must install the metering, measurement and control equipment in each sub-park until the transition date or in the 6 months following the publication of this dispatch (i.e. 15.10.2021), whichever occurs later. In exceptional and duly justified circumstances and not attributable to the producers such deadline may be subject to extension; and  

d)    Must submit proof of the installation of the metering equipment to the network operator, the last resource supplier and informing the DGEG.

Finally, a penalty is provided for in cases where the deadlines for installing metering equipment are not met (paragraph c), in which case payment of invoices will be suspended until they are settled.