Trial Run and Complex Testing
For a solar farm to be accepted into operation, Article 36 of the Georgian Law on Energy and Water Supply makes the trial run and/or complex testing of the object a mandatory stage. An enterprise that has built an electricity generation object or reconstructed it — including by increasing its capacity — and connected it to the transmission or distribution network in accordance with the procedure and technical requirements established by Georgian legislation, must apply for the trial run and/or complex testing to the operator of the system to whose network the object is connected, and representatives of the transmission system operator participate in the process. The testing and the consent to acceptance into operation are carried out under the procedure established by the network rules, and unless those rules provide otherwise, the operator must declare its consent or refusal within no more than 90 calendar days from the trial run. During this acceptance period the owner enterprise is not required to hold a generation license, and the purchase and sale of the electricity produced during the period is regulated by the electricity market rules. Once the object has been accepted into operation, generation is allowed only on the basis of a generation license issued in accordance with Chapter V of this law or, in the cases envisaged by the law, on the basis of a document confirming acceptance into operation issued by the authorized organ.
Principles of Generation Support
Under Article 37 of the law, the promotion of electricity generation is regulated transparently and non-discriminatorily, taking into account economic expediency, the minimal costs of the final consumer, and criteria of influence on the electricity balance and the operation of the Georgian electricity system. Generation from renewable energy sources and high-efficiency cogeneration may be encouraged through incentives and support mechanisms defined by legislative acts of Georgia or normative acts of the Government — to reach the level established for Georgia by the relevant legislation of the Energy Community. Those rules must cover the support mechanisms, the rights and obligations of electricity enterprises, the conditions of incentivized generation and the related regulatory requirements, while every incentive or supporting measure must, where necessary, be justified in accordance with the legislation regulating competition and state aid. For a solar developer this framework defines both the boundary of what support is lawfully available and the conditions attached to it.