Meeting with Minister involving issues about Renewable Energy Sector

GRTU Renewable Energy Section
President Noel Gauci held a meeting with the Minister for Energy and the
Conservation of Water, Dr Konrad Mizzi, in order to discuss issues directly
relevant to the Renewable Energy Section. Below are the topics that were
discussed:

Launch of
the Domestic PV Scheme

The Ministry communicated that the
plan is to have the scheme launched and initiated in May. GRTU understands this
is a shorter than anticipated timeframe but quality installations are a must.
The scheme shall be ‘open ended', meaning that it will remain open until funds
are exhausted. Dr Mizzi stated that he intended to keep the Government's
commitment to oversee €20-25 million in PV investments every year, something
very encouraging to the sector and Maltese in general.

Commercial/industrial
projects

The Minister also expressed his
intention to launch one or more commercial and industrial incentive schemes,
and possibly (relatively) large scale renewable energy projects. The latter
could also include Photovoltaic farms. GRTU sees this commitment very
favorably, especially since the Minister agrees with the idea that such farms
should include as much installers as possible. GRTU has in fact long been
promoting the idea that large scale projects should be split between different
installation companies, although they remain property of the investor and
overseen by their particular representative.

Regarding commercial incentive
schemes, GRTU believes that although these could be run by Malta Enterprise,
the MRA system should be adopted so as to avoid a repeat of the suspension that
was suffered during the last ERDF scheme.

Solar water heaters and energy
efficiency

The Minister also advised that along
with the domestic PV grant scheme, a solar water heaters scheme shall also be
launched, as well as schemes for insulation (roof, double glazing etc).

Feed in
tariffs

The tariffs shall remain the same as
announced in the Budget.

Section
meeting with the Minister

A request was passed on to the
Minister and his team to attend a meeting whereby they could hear first-hand
complaints, suggestions and any comments our members would like to make. The
Minister agreed to such a request saying he would look forward to such an occasion.
GRTU thus shall be organizing such an event.

Regulation

GRTU gave explanation of the PVPFS
Scheme and the process of becoming GRTU APPROVED. The Minister expressed his
satisfaction towards such an initiative.

GRTU also conveyed certain concerns
expressed by the sector alleging towards the installation of systems prior
approval while promising customers that they would be able to apply for a
grant, this is of course not possible under the current regulations. GRTU
insisted that this was unacceptable and suggested ways of tackling the issue.
GRTU will be following up the discussion together with the MRA to try to find a
solution.