PV module costs have fallen as much as 80% over the last decade, and Southeast Europe (SEE) has abundant solar potential. Nonetheless, regional uptake has been limited. The reasons range from a high cost of capital for investors to not fully liberalized markets, subsidized retail prices, and a regulatory and policy environment that sometimes does more harm than good (such as planning and permitting provisions).
Prosumers are one pillar in the Clean Energy for All Europeans package, which also aims to make it easier for households to produce, store or sell their own energy. The regulation governing prosumer activities is, however, emerging mainly from the national level. An important yet often overlooked prosumer category is commercial SME prosumers: hotels, supermarkets, bakeries, etc.
Commercial prosumers can play a key role in enabling rapid renewables deployment in the region. This underdeveloped sector can fully benefit from falling technology prices and the region’s vast solar potential if the regulatory, policy & financial environment triggering investments is improved. Therefore, this project will feed-in into the national debates of Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Romania on developing an enabling policy and regulatory framework for the uptake of roof-top PV within the commercial sector.
