Bulgaria must reduce its energy consumption by 41% by the end of 2020 compared to 2002. This is the set target for the country, announced the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) in the report of a project prepared jointly with the Sustainable Energy Development Agency, Sofia Energy Efficiency Agency SOFENA about the opportunities and problems in the industry. Industrial energy consumption is about 28% of final energy consumption. In recent years, it has decreased by 29%. However, energy consumption in Bulgaria is higher than the average in the EU 1.79 times.
As a result of the performed activities, four packages of proposals for changes in the regulations concerning energy efficiency have been prepared. They are addressed to the relevant ministries:
To the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, the emphasis in the proposals is on the need to synchronize the requirements of the Spatial Planning Act (SPA) and the Energy Efficiency Act (EEA).
A proposal has been sent to the Ministry of Finance to allow ESCO contracts to be treated as contracts for services for VAT purposes – to make deferred payment of VAT possible.
In 2019, companies have implemented a variety of energy efficiency measures, the most popular being energy saving measures for lighting installations (over a quarter of all measures), replacement of technological equipment and technological units and facilities (29% in total), optimization of the building stock (8%). Energy saving measures related to cogeneration and renewable energy sources (each with a share of 1% of all measures) are still not very popular.
Source: 3e-news
