Revision of the Combined Heat and Power Act (CHP Act)

The revision of the CHP Act in 2016 aimed to increase the amount of net generation of electricity from CHP installations and to boost investment in, particularly efficient, flexible and low-carbon CHP installations.

The 2017 amendment to the CHP Act ensured that CHP legislation continues to be compatible with EU state aid rules and therefore delivers long-term legal security. The Act also sets out rules that make the funding procedure more competitive:

Since the end of 2017, the funding rate for electricity from combined heat and power (CHP) plants of between 1 and 50 megawatts has been determined via auction. A separate auction was held for innovative CHP systems in order to provide funding for highly flexible, low-emission CHP plants that use heat from renewable sources.

This new category of funding was intended to open up promising new prospects for combined heat and power and to provide incentives for the necessary investment in flexible technologies.