On November 30, the Senate unanimously approved – 65 votes in favor and none negative – the bill agreed by legislators, businessmen and representatives of the Executive Power that authorizes and creates incentives for private users to dump surplus clean energy into the network. of distribution. It is a project that will change the logic of electricity production and consumption in Argentina: it is a new regulation that enables residential users and the private sector to produce their own energy from renewable sources.
Conditions and incentives
The new law provides that, from its regulations, any construction project for public buildings “must contemplate the use of some distributed generation system from renewable sources.”
The incentive policies for users to effectively install equipment that allows them to produce electricity will be implemented through the Fund for the Distributed Generation of Renewable Energies (FODIS), created through article 16, to which the National Treasury will allocate in the first year an amount of $500 million pesos.
The FODIS may provide funds and grant facilities through loans, discount or subsidize the interest rate of credits, grant incentives for the injection or discounts for the acquisition of generation systems, or even finance the dissemination, research and development related to the possible applications of this type of technology.
The national industry was also included in the legislation, because the creation of a special promotion regime was contemplated, which seeks to stimulate the activities of research, design, development, investment in capital goods, production, certification and installation services for the generation distributed.
“This project was agreed upon last year, but more involvement was needed from the Ministry of Energy, which only this year was able to focus on it, since during 2016 it was very busy with the Renovar program. Now we have even reached an agreement with the distributors and with the authorities of the different provinces, which are fundamental”, assured the ruling deputy Juan Carlos Villalonga in dialogue with Cronista.com when the project had obtained the opinion in the Lower House and before will go to the venue.
Paradigm shift
A new legislation that allows the production of energy in a decentralized manner and from renewable sources was one of the most important requests in the sector. Marcelo Álvarez, president of the Argentine Chamber of Renewable Energies, assured in a conversation with this newspaper that self-generation produces a paradigm shift in consumption, since the user begins to have more awareness and can even generate income from the installation of that technology.
“Renewable energies are a paradigm shift. It is not only a change in technology, but it is also associated with a change in the development model and the consumption model. And, from the change in the consumption model, also the energy production model. This paradigm shift means that the citizen is not a passive subject who simply consumes, but rather becomes an actor within the causal chain”, Álvarez had indicated.
The most widespread model for the self-generation of electricity is from solar panels or photovoltaic technology. The level of generation power depends not only on the technology that is installed but also on the factors of energy production capacity of the geographical area, which for solar in Argentina are high, especially in the north of the country and Cuyo.
Source: www.calivillalonga.com.ar – www.losverdes.org.ar