Measures approved to simplify procedures

Decree-Law no. 30-A/2022 was published, approving exceptional measures aimed at ensuring the simplification of procedures and accelerating the production of energy from renewable sources.

Thus, at the level of REPowerEU, new actions were established to intensify the production of green energy, diversify the offer and reduce the gas demand, specifically:

• Increase the production of biomethane and renewable hydrogen, the deployment of solar and wind energy, the deployment of innovative solutions based on hydrogen and electricity from renewable sources at competitive costs in industrial sectors, as well as the simplification and reduction of licensing.
  
  
• Adapt the assessment on a case-by-case basis regarding the submission of projects for power plants, determining that outside the sensitive areas, the pronouncement of the environmental impact assessment authority (EIA), until now always mandatory, will only occur at the request of the licensing entity when there are indications of that the project is likely to cause significant impacts on the environment.
  
  
• Promoting the proper framework in environmental, EIA and integrated pollution prevention and control regimes, of the new reality constituted by hydrogen production projects by water electrolysis, whose production process is free from hazards and pollution and had not, until now, the appropriate framework in these legal regimes.
  
  
• Establish the integration of administrative procedures for issuing opinions and authorizations in the EIA procedure or the analysis of environmental incidences when the competent authorities intervene in them.
  
  
• To speed up the entry into operation of power plants producing renewable energy sources, storage facilities, production units for self-consumption, for the purposes of entry into operation, the prior issuance of an exploration license or an exploration certificate is waived. To be issued by the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology, provided that the network operator confirms the existence of technical conditions for connection to the Public Service Electricity Grid (RESP).
  
  
• Establish minimum requirements to be observed in the installation of electrical production centers of renewable energy sources, production units for self-consumption, regardless of whether there is an EIA procedure or analysis of environmental incidences that ensure the protection of natural resources, soil, water and territory and the preservation of biodiversity, also imposing an obligatory distance from population centers.
  
  
• Determining the obligation of the projects to be instructed with proposals for the involvement of local populations, namely through the exploration of traditional activities.
  
  
• Make it possible for existing wind power centers to inject all their production into the RESP without limiting the administratively assigned injection capacity, to guarantee the maximum possible production depending on the installed power of each electricity production center.

These are the measures that the Government approved with an exceptional and temporary compensation regime in order to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and accelerate the ecological transition, constituting a protection against abrupt price increases resulting from the armed conflict in Ukraine.