There were several studies on the potential for renewables in Bulgaria which show that the potential is considerable (see the table below). However, in the National Long-term Programme for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources (2005-2015), the evaluation of the accessible potential for energy generation from renewables is less optimistic. The authors of this programme consider that the total accessible potential for energy generation from all renewables in the country is about 6 Mtoe which according to them in 2015 will be only 38% of the total final consumption, if all the accessible potential is used. This will come mainly from hydro energy and biomass.
Table 3: Potential of renewable energy in Bulgaria
| Source |
Indicator |
Solar [Mtoe] |
Wind [Mtoe] |
Biomass [Mtoe] |
Hydro below 10 MW [Mtoe] |
Large hydro [Mtoe] |
Geother mal [Mtoe] |
Total [Mtoe] |
| ESD and Ecotherm - Engineering Ltd. 1997 |
Total resource available |
13 000 |
75 |
1159 |
371 |
336 |
14 941 |
|
| Theoretical potential |
0.013 |
75 (?) |
3.6 |
0.122 |
2.002 |
0.326 |
81 |
|
| Simeonova et al. 1996 |
Total |
14 703 |
10 |
5-5.3 |
1.8 |
N/A |
- |
25 458 |
| Accessible |
8 169 |
5 357 |
- |
- |
N/A |
- |
13 526 |
|
| Reserve |
18.4 |
1.8-2 |
0.4 |
1 |
N/A |
0.003 |
22 |
|
| National long term program on promotion of RES 2005-2015 |
Accessible potential |
0.390 |
0.283 |
2.70 |
2.282 |
0.350 |
6.005 |
|
In the same National programme on the promotion of RES, the following estimations for the electricity generation from RES (RES-e) are provided:
Table 4: Forecast for RES-e in 2010 and 2015
| Generation of electricity from RES: |
until 2010 |
until 2015 |
|
| GWh |
Ktoe |
GWh |
ktoe |
|
| Biomass (incl. biogas) |
418 |
36.0 |
849 |
73.0 |
|
| Hydro power (incl. large) |
2 976 |
256.0 |
2 988 |
257.0 |
|
| Wind energy |
8 |
0.7 |
256 |
22 |
|
| Photovoltaics |
7 |
0.6 |
43 |
3.7 |
|
| Geothermal Energy |
15 |
1.3 |
30 |
2.6 |
|
| TOTAL: |
3 426 |
294.6 |
4 166 |
358.3 |
|
| Increase compared to 2002 |
56% or 6% annually |
90% or 6% annually |
|
