2018 has been a very productive year for Restart Energy globally, as we have established a registered presence in an astounding 7 countries in just 7 short months — our trademark rapid expansion is becoming somewhat of a tradition for our company and it is this head-strong work ethic that we continue to employ going forward.

Continuing our expansion into the Balkans, the next target in our sights was Bulgaria and we are happy to announce that — as per the trend — we have now successfully registered “Restart Energy EOOD”.

Energy Overview

Bulgaria, along with Romania, are among the least dependent countries in terms of energy imports within Europe. However, Bulgaria does depend on natural gas imports, which supply almost 100% of its required domestic gas needs. Unsurprisingly, natural gas only makes up about 14.5% of Bulgaria’s Final Energy Consumption.

In 2016, Bulgaria was a notable and prolific exporter of energy, having exported 5.695 Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent) of energy during that year alone. As of 2016, the country’s primary energy production stood at 10.757 Mtoe, with an additional 12.764 Mtoe coming from imported sources.

Renewables

Clean energy sources have been on the rise within Bulgaria in recent years, renewable energy consumption having doubled in the past decade. The country has shown that it can consistently meet its renewable energy production and consumption targets, being well ahead of the curve in this regard.

In 2016, green energy consumption was 18.8% — exceeding the intended target of 16% for that year. More recently, the country has even managed to exceed its 2020 targets regarding both production and consumption; with plans to further increase renewable installed capacity as part of a 10-year plan announced by Bulgaria’s Electricity System Operator.

The implementation of this plan is scheduled to be finalized by 2027 and will add a further 401 MW from various green sources (647 MW in total, counting non-renewables). Specifically, the plan calls for 141 MW coming from wind-generated sources, 161 MW from solar, 35 MW from hydroelectric, and 64 MW from biomass/waste. Around 665 million EUR will be invested into electricity transmission until 2027, with nearly 76 million EUR coming from EU funds.

What follows is a breakdown of the most important renewables within the country, listed by energy production percentage:

Hydropower

(10.1% of production in 2016)

Statistics suggest that hydroelectric power plants are underperforming and on the decline, with hydro sources representing 10.1% of the country’s electricity generation total in 2016, down from 12.49% in 2015.

Solar

(3.1% of production in 2016)

The rate of adoption of solar has been slowed in recent years due to the regulatory framework surrounding the energy sector, even though targets have been met.

The FIT scheme implemented in 2012 aimed towards the growth of solar PV, while at first quite successful in fostering the installation of new solar-powered projects, has since become insufficient, given that the incentives provided are now very close to the value of electricity paid by the final consumer — rendering it near unable to stimulate new PV installations. Even so, solar’s share of electricity generation was a respectable 3.1% in 2016, with steady growth expected moving forwards.

Wind

(3.1% of production in 2016)

In 2016, wind power plants represented 3.1% of the country’s electricity output, with 700 MW of installed capacity by 2017 — equating to 4% of the country’s electricity demand.

Experts have stated that while regulatory changes are needed for wide-scale adoption (currently, a retroactively-introduced grid balance fee is severely hampering adoption and profitability), the country has a vast and untapped potential for eolian energy — with prime locations along its Black Sea coastline that count it among the most attractive options for wind investments within Europe.

Energy market liberalization plans

While adoption of renewables in Bulgaria is on-track regarding targets, the deeper issue of market liberalization still looms over the green energy sector and further adoption. While there have been roadblocks to liberalization, the country even having postponed the date of such a few times now, there has been a lot of work to implement it — currently, the free portion of the market is estimated at 52% of the total share.

Households in Bulgaria however still depend on state-run energy sources, while large companies are forced to purchase from the free-market — this is not an ideal solution and still a work in progress.

Last winter, for example, free-market energy prices surged by nearly 50% due to an imports ban. The situation has since been rectified, but Bulgaria is still growing into its free-market and associated practices.

Further developments regarding this can be extrapolated from statements made by Delyan Dobrev, the head of the energy committee in parliament, that in a statement to public radio BNR said that Bulgaria is expected to cancel its long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with two major coal-fired power plants (Maritsa Iztok-1 & Maritsa Iztok-3) by the end of 2018.

“The contracts have to be cancelled, and these plants have to now sell their energy on the free-market.”

Maritsa Iztok-1, located near Galabovo, and Maritsa Iztok-3, located near Stara Zagora, are both large lignite-fired thermal power stations that together produce around 20% of Bulgaria’s electricity and have been selling their electricity output to public power provider NEK at preferential prices for decades. The dissolution of such a long-term contract in favor of free-market practices is a major step forward in Bulgaria’s energy liberalization.

While Bulgaria has traditionally depended on gas imports for the vast majority of its needs — even reaching 100% dependence on gas imports in certain years — more recently, the Bulgarian government has proceeded to sign license agreements for deep offshore Black Sea exploration, which can give rise to a domestic gas production. The government has committed their support to this exploration campaign and has linked it to the country’s energy security, which represents an essential aspect of its energy priorities.

Lastly, steps have been taken in order to implement EU energy market reforms designed to support supplier variety — a crucial part of a free energy market — which, it is hoped, will lead to a decrease in costs for consumers, as a result of more competition.

About Restart Energy

Restart Energy Democracy (RED) is a blockchain-powered platform, backed by Restart Energy — a European energy provider with 20 million USD in revenues. The company was built with a vision to democratize the energy sector and quash the dominance of legacy monopolies in the energy world. The company’s credentials include a customer base of 27,000 household and 3,000 corporate clients, expanding at more than 2,000 clients per month (5,000 new customers in the first two months of 2018), and its impressive growth: 1700% from 2015 until today.

Restart Energy is developing the world’s first peer-to-peer, fully decentralized energy transfer platform allowing users to send and receive energy worldwide, based on its proprietary virtual balancing system, that uses A.I., Big Data, and IoT technologies. The RED ecosystem is comprised of the RED-Platform, RED-Franchise, and RED-MWAT Tokens.

The RED-Franchise is the first power retail franchise to simplify and allow any company or entrepreneur to operate their own power utility enterprise, enabling them to start selling energy in more than 35 deregulated energy markets globally.

MWAT tokens are crypto-tokens that enable the buying and selling of up to 1 MWh of electricity per month on the RED-Platform Software and will facilitate the development of affordable clean energy, through free-market practices. Upon completion of registration on the platform, an initial loyalty bonus of 0.11 kWh is applied. Producers send out monthly loyalty bonuses through the RED Loyalty System, totaling 1–5% of traded on-grid energy in exchange for access to the RED Platform.

Importantly, it should be noted that potential franchise partners will need to own (this is not a form of payment to us) a certain number of MWAT tokens, in order to qualify for our various franchise tiers — the secret to our award-winning growth as a business!

For more information, please visit our website, our Telegram, and read the Restart Energy whitepaper. Join our announcement channel for updates regarding Restart Energy Democracy.

We invite you to join our RED Platform’s beta and earn 50 MWAT for joining now; refer your friends for even more rewards.