Issue 02 · 4 September 2026

This week’s takeaways

• Several countries took steps that should benefit smaller, shorter-duration renewable energy assets.
• Some capacity markets will begin to accept smaller projects.
• Several government bodies reached decisions on proposed renewable energy projects.

How to read this

↑ Tailwind   ↓ Headwind   • Neutral

Tailwind helps the businesses affected. Headwind adds cost, delay or risk. Neutral means no clear overall benefit or drawback, though the change may still matter.

Potential means the effect depends on a proposal being adopted or another condition being met. Consultations are proposals open for feedback. They are listed with their closing dates in the diary at the end.

Our six themes
Market Design · Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes · Siting, Permitting and Land Use · Grid · Environmental Markets · Supply Chains

The regulatory picture

Updates in this edition, by market and likely effect. Bar length shows how many updates we cover, not how big their impact is. Consultations in the diary are included, and cross-border measures appear in each affected market. Select a market to jump to its section.

↑ Tailwind • Neutral ↓ Headwind

This week’s deep dive

🇪🇺 Across markets · Siting, Permitting and Land Use

Wind projects rejected across Europe

Several government bodies reached decisions on proposed renewable energy projects. While each of the solar and storage projects in our sample moved forward this week, every single rejected asset in our sample was a wind project.

In Italy, the two projects would have totalled 115.2 MW and were assessed as nationally strategic projects, putting them on a fast track under the country's Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan and National Recovery and Resilience Plan. However, both failed following environmental reviews.

The Monte Pranu project, a 72 MW wind farm that would have been located in Sardinia, received negative judgments on its environmental compatibility and cultural heritage impacts. The Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE) rejected the project due to negative conclusions on, among other things, the project's impacts on biodiversity, fire risk, and archaeological sites. A 43.2 MW wind farm intended for Sicily failed on environmental grounds, though it did not receive a negative conclusion on the cultural questions.

A 125 MW wind farm in Spain also failed due to environmental issues, as well as lapsed grid access permits. Conversely, the proposed 322 MW K2 Ventum wind park in Latvia actually received a positive opinion from the Energy and Environment Agency, but the Cabinet of Ministers ultimately rejected the project on procedural grounds, determining that the repeat consultation with the local community it had requested had not taken place and that the local municipality still opposed the project.

However, it was not all bad news for European wind. In Greece, the Ministry of Environment and Energy moved a cluster of three onshore wind farms totalling 64.2 MW through the environmental assessment phase, though the project has yet to receive approval for construction.

This is just one week's worth of decisions, and it is a small sample size, so we will avoid drawing grand conclusions. However, should this trend continue, it suggests increasingly higher development risk premiums and greater capital expenditure for wind compared to other renewable energy assets.

What to watch: Further evidence that environmental and community-consultation risk is concentrating in wind projects, particularly in southern Europe.

Minimum bid quantities set for Nordic balancing bids

31 August ·  Market Design  Update · • Neutral

The four Nordic TSOs set 24 November 2026 as the deadline to implement a change that requires every aFRR and mFRR capacity market bid to carry a minimum quantity. This makes setting a minimum quantity a real commercial decision for balancing service providers (BSPs). Set the minimum quantity too low and the bid is more likely to succeed, but the volume might be too low to cover costs. Set it too high and the bid is more likely to be rejected.

Croatia shortens reserve auctions and lowers bid size

3 September ·  Market Design  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

Croatia's transmission system operator (HOPS) adopted new rules to govern the procurement of aFRR and mFRR. mFRR will move from weekly to daily auctions, while the bidding window for aFRR will now open seven days before delivery. Additionally, balancing energy bids will now be submitted in 15-minute intervals, and the minimum bid size will decrease from 3 MW to 1 MW. The purchase of these reserves allows HOPS to balance grid frequency in real time and provides battery storage operators with a secondary revenue stream. The new rules, which will take effect on 15 September, allow a greater number of storage projects to participate in capacity balancing and reduce the degree of forecasting risk.

Bat-protection guidance adds wind curtailment risk

28 August ·  Siting, Permitting and Land Use  Update · ↓ Potential Headwind

SGAV published guidance on developers' duty to protect certain species, mainly bats, when assessing onshore renewable energy projects. Under the guidance, which is not binding, standard wind sites are typically required to shut down at night from mid-July to mid-October when winds are below five to six metres per second, while higher-risk sites may need to shut down from April to October when winds are below eight to 10 metres per second. This creates additional curtailment risk for Danish wind projects.

Tariff guidance aims to speed tariff approvals

2 September ·  Grid  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The Danish Utilities Authority published guidance to help electricity and gas companies to comply with the EU's tariff-setting requirements on transparency and non-discrimination. The goal is to speed up regulatory approval of the new tariff methods that the shift to renewable energy and wider electrification require.

Biofuel emissions-accounting criteria established

1 September ·  Environmental Markets  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The Estonian Minister of Energy and Environment issued a regulation establishing the criteria for biomethane, biomass, and other bio-based fuel producers to demonstrate and calculate their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. Doing so will allow them to be counted towards GHG emissions reduction targets, which is a precondition for accessing feed-in support and corporate offtake claims.

Finland waives October BRP volume fees

31 August ·  Market Design  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

In October, Fingrid will not charge balance-responsible parties (BRPs) a production and consumption volume fee due to lower-than-forecast reserve costs, which balance service fees cover, and better-than-expected results from electricity trading. This is a direct reduction in costs for BRPs in Finland.

Germany extends its network-charge subsidy

2 September ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The federal government will extend its subsidy for electricity transmission network charges through 2029 at a rate of approximately €5.5 billion per year. While the purpose of this subsidy is primarily to reduce electricity costs for consumers and businesses, a lower system-wide cost burden could make on-site solar, wind, and storage more attractive by reducing the gap between wholesale and delivered power prices. It also reduces near-term cost uncertainty for large loads.

Spare grid capacity tendered for wind

30 August ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

MEKH published a tender to allocate spare capacity on the medium- and high-voltage network to additional wind power capacity. The deadline to submit an application is 30 October 2026.

Hungary updates tariffs, permitting and connection deadlines

28 August ·  Grid  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The Hungarian government, the Minister for Economy and Energy and MEKH issued a series of decrees to meet EU requirements for Recovery and Resilience Facility funds after these funds had been frozen for years due to corruption and rule of law violations. The decrees include updates to tariff methodologies, easier permitting for wind and solar, and firm deadlines for grid connections for rooftop solar.

Ireland sets the 2026–27 imperfections charge

28 August ·  Market Design  Update · • Neutral

The Single Electricity Market (SEM) Committee published a decision paper to set the imperfections charge for the 12 months from October 2026 to September 2027 at €793.23 million, which equates to a price of €18.81 per megawatt-hour (MWh). This is slightly lower than the proposed charge of €796.92 million. The imperfections charge is a per-unit fee on suppliers intended to cover the TSOs’ costs of managing network constraints and keeping the system secure. These suppliers often pass the cost through to consumers. The reduction comes from the SEM Committee disallowing €3.6 million of costs linked to the dispatch of pumped storage units, as it attempts to reduce electricity costs.

Transmission loss factors shift across Ireland

2 September ·  Market Design  Update · • Neutral

EirGrid and SONI published the Transmission Loss Adjustment Factors that will be in effect from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027. These are site-specific multipliers used to allocate costs for transmission losses. They apply directly to generators and interconnectors connected to the transmission or distribution system. For the relevant 12-month period, western and northwestern Ireland will face a lower factor than in 2025/26, meaning a smaller amount of the metered generation for projects in those areas will be eligible for settlement and revenue. Conversely, a higher factor than in 2025/26 will apply in the east, southeast, and southwest.

Energy-release mechanism fee approved

28 August ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Update · • Neutral

MASE approved a fee of €0.0625 per MWh, capped at €1.5m per year, to be paid by companies participating in the energy release mechanism. This scheme allows industrial customers to source electricity from a GSE-managed renewable energy portfolio at below-market prices for three years in exchange for committing to invest in additional domestic renewable capacity.

Romania creates a crisis flexibility mechanism

2 September ·  Market Design  Update · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) approved a regulation to create a market mechanism for its TSO to buy flexibility from dispatchable consumers in the event of system adequacy crises, such as resource shortages or extreme weather. When activated, auctions will run daily for up to one month, with a minimum bid of 0.5 MW, merit-order selection, and settlement tied to verified load reduction. This creates an additional, though occasional and contingent, market opportunity for demand-side flexibility assets.

Spain moves continuous intraday trading to 15-minute rounds

31 August ·  Market Design  Update · ↑ Tailwind

The National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) approved amendments to Spain's Rules of Operation of the Daily and Intraday Electricity Markets to move the continuous intraday market from its current hourly structure to a new 96-round per day system (one round every 15 minutes). Increasing the number of rounds allows energy assets to trade their positions closer to their delivery period, reducing forecasting errors and imbalance charge exposure, and improving arbitrage opportunities for batteries.

Solar PV curtailment framework published

28 August ·  Market Design  Update · ↓ Potential Headwind

ElCom published a framework for the curtailment of electricity from solar PV assets, as well as the associated compensation. Under this framework, distribution network operators will be able to curtail up to 3% of a PV system's annual production without the owner's consent and without compensation. The operator can curtail further if there is a contract in place that provides for compensation, so long as this curtailment serves specific network purposes, such as relieving congestion. This creates additional curtailment and revenue risk for Swiss PV assets.

Closing by 11 September