Bogdan Tudorache

The Bulgarian government doesn’t want to phase out coal, and there is basically no new renewable investment projected by 2030 in the National energy and Climate Plan, says Martin Vladimirov, Foundation for Study of Democracy, Bulgaria.

“The energy strategy of Bulgaria includes preservation of coal- fired power generation at all costs. The reason is populism and private interests. Is also about 12,000 jobs that the government doesn’t want to lose,” he says.

The only new investment is the construction of nuclear plant that doesn’t make any sense from electricity point of view, he says. Bulgaria also wants to develop a natural gas hub- which means transiting more and more Russian gas.

At the same time, the Bulgarian Government wants to cut all subsidies for renewables, and is deepening the dependence of biomass- a statistical trick- making biomass main supporter of the renewable target for 2020 and 2030, the expert added.

“On the positive side, there is a focus on energy efficiency improvement and expanding the interconnection capacity, as well as – at least on paper – there is a full market coupling and power and gas market liberalization strategy”, Vladimirov concludes.