FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE Master Plan also lays out plans to use gas in the power sec­tor, thus undermining its decarbonised electricity supply. INCLUSIVE ENERGY TRANSITION JUST TRANSITION Albania may not be the first country that comes to mind re­garding just transition, since it does not use coal in the pow­er sector. However, it is an oil producer, and to a much smaller extent also produces gas. This means that in the coming years it will need to develop a plan for the social, economic and environmental transition of its oil producing regions, in cooperation with the affected people. HOUSEHOLDS AS ENERGY CONSUMERS AND TAXPAYERS Before it was overtaken by Serbia in 2019, 60 Albania was for some time paying the highest price in the Western Balkans for its renewable energy incentives scheme. So far this has not even supported diversification, as for many years it was only open to hydropower operators. In 2020, the overall cost of the feed-in tariffs amounted to around EUR 74 mil­lion, which was less than in 2018 and 2019 61 due to low rainfall, but still extremely high considering its ineffective­ness in increasing the diversity of the country’s renewable energy and ensuring security of supply. Although the country has generally switched to auctions, existing contracts will still be valid for some years so the public will keep paying. In addition, new plants under 2 MW are still eligible for feed-in tariffs under the 2017 Renewable Energy Law, 62 which is not in line with EU State aid rules, as the threshold should be 500 kW(except for wind plants). As noted above, energy poverty is not monitored in Albania, so we can only guess its scale. It is clear that efforts to ad­dress it are nowhere near what is needed. However, since 2020, the country has 26 newly-certified experts in energy auditing of buildings, 63 which could be a first step towards practical implementation and targeting energy poverty. However, Albania has no energy efficiency fund, 64 which could hinder progress. So far, only loans can be taken, via the Green Economy Financing Programme. 65 As of 2020 the 60 See Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia, Annual Reports. 61 Energy Regulatory Authority, Annual Report 2020, 2021, 124. 62 The Assembly of the Republic of Albania, Law No 7/2017 on the ­Promotion of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources, 15 No­vember 2017. 63 Albania Agency and Energy Efficiency, Fourth Annual Report under the Energy Efficiency Directive, Energy Community, June 2020 64 Energy Community, Albania – Energy Efficiency, accessed 14 Novem­ber 2021. 65 Katharina Habersbrunner and Eva-Carina Martschew, Report on gender aspects of existing financial schemes for energy poverty measures, EmpowerMed, September 2020. Albanian Government was working on secondary legislation to define energy poor groups and establish a financial mech­anism to assist them. 66 PROSUMERS So far Albania has no‘true’ prosumers, who both produce electricity for themselves and feed it into the grid. Albania’s legislation enables a net metering scheme for consumers with installed capacity up to 500kW. Surplus electricity can be sold to the universal service supplier, but, the methodol­ogy for defining the price is not yet adopted. 67 Use of solar water heaters is more common, with an estimated 176,000 m 2 installed by 2015, according to the latest figures available. 68 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING ON ENERGY POLICY AND INFRASTRUCTURE Albania is one of the least transparent of the southeast Eu­ropean countries in terms of decision-making and public participation on environmental matters. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the energy sector. As the European Commission notes in this year’s Enlargement Report, Plans for hydroelectric power plants have generated much debate, protests and court action, casting doubts on the concession processes legality and on the quality and validity of environmental impact as­sessments(EIAs). Moreover, no strategic environmen­tal assessments(SEAs) have been conducted despite the cumulative impacts generated in the river basins. 69 Even access to basic information is a problem, with no list of approvals for hydropower plants under 2 MW having been published and the concessions register not being regularly updated. 70 Access to justice can be blocked at every turn, with officials often responsible for applying the law in spe­cific cases where they have clear conflicts of interest, such as the construction of hydropower projects in the Valbona Na­tional Park. 71 Civil society organisations are becoming more and more ac­tive, but progress is slow. It is often hard to trace how and 66 Katharina Habersbrunner and Eva-Carina Martschew, Report on gender aspects of existing financial schemes for energy poverty measures. 67 Energy Community Secretariat, WB6 Energy Transition Tracker. 68 IRENA, Renewables Readiness Assessment: Albania, International ­Renewable Energy Agency, 2021. 69 European Commission, Albania Enlargement Report, 2021, 19 Octo­ber 2021. 70 Artan Rama,‘Albania: Concerns over Increased Number of HPP Con­cessions’, Exit.al, September 2019. 71 See for example Alice Taylor,‘Albanian Bailiff Refuses to Execute High Court Ruling Against Hydropower Company Genr2’, Exit.al, 8 October 2021 and TOKA,‘The Battle for Valbona Continues’, TOKA, 10 September 2018. 18