The Energy Regulatory Authority (RAE) in collaboration with Geospatial Enabling Technologies (GET) have developed a System of Spatial Control of Applications (SCA) for the issuance of electricity generation licenses from Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Electricity & Electricity Cogeneration Stations. The SCA was developed with the aim of speeding up the application control procedures, considering the new legal framework and with a view to the equal treatment of applicants.

The process of checking and evaluating applications, submitted to RAE, for a license to generate electricity, involves different stages. Spatial controls play a key role in the process, ensuring environmental and spatial adequacy at the first level and the corresponding consequences of each project regarding its location in the geographical area. Indicatively, the spatial controls ensure the fulfillment of geographical criteria, the protection in cases where projects are placed in zones of exclusion of the location of RES facilities, if these areas have been delimited in a special and specific way.

The recent enactment of Law 4685/2020 (Government Gazette Α΄92 / 2020) required the existence of a mechanism that will enable the acceleration of the process of controlling the fulfillment of the geographical criteria for several (pending) applications exceeding 1500. For these applications, updated spatial data were resubmitted by the interested parties, based on relevant instructions drawn up, in order to standardize the procedure. The details of the applications should comply with the relevant provisions (Article 13). The application of these provisions requires the control of the following points:

• the application is located in a saturated area
• the application is located in an exclusion zone for the location of RES facilities
• the updated polygon is spatially smaller than or equal to the polygon of the original application
• the application is overlapped with an existing production license issued prior to the submission of the application
• the application overlaps with an application of the same cycle or previous
• the distance between wind turbines of the same station located in the same polygon, to be greater than 5 * D.
• the distance between wind turbines is less than 2.5 * D (as D is considered the largest diameter of neighboring wind turbines).
• the boundaries of the polygon extend at a distance greater than 3.5 * D from the positions of the wind turbines
• the acre coverage of the photovoltaic station is within the limits
• exceeding the carrying capacity of the Municipal Unit during the evaluation of the application (for wind farm), taking into account the issued permits as well as the applications of the same or previous cycle

The developed system allows the execution of all the above checks in combination with editorial checks (compliance with the standard files) of the submitted data. The control mechanism consists of two main components: a) the control functions in the spatial database and b) the online interface for invoking and managing controls. The control functions accept the request number as the input element. Some tests are obviously simple, while others require specialized and complex calculations, such as the on-the-fly determination of the load-bearing capacity. For this reason, emphasis was placed on the optimization of algorithms, the use of data indexing techniques, the creation of faces. As a result, the average time to complete checks for an application is around 30 ”.

The internet interface has a user management system (RAE executives), a search unit and the control unit. The checks can be performed in parallel for more than one application. The individual checks for each RES category are called in logical order (taking into account the computational cost), as for example there is no point in calculating overlaps with other applications or bearing capacity when an application is located in an exclusion zone. Upon completion of the process, it is possible to produce a relevant certificate, which details the result of each test. In addition, SCA allows interconnection with third party systems, through a programming interface.

The system was developed with the exclusive use, development and configuration of geospatial Free Software / Open Source Software (FOSS) with which the RAE Geoinformation Map has been developed. The FOSS option is a strategic decision for RAE, as it allows, the thematic expansion of the system with the development of new applications, substantially supported with accumulated know-how and experience, while achieving significant savings. Finally, it is worth noting that the system was implemented in the government cloud computing infrastructure (G-Cloud).

RAE acquired a modern tool through which automates the process of controlling the fulfillment of spatial criteria of the applications for granting a license for electricity producer from RES. Equal and transparent evaluation of applications, huge time savings, the cultivation of a culture of using standard procedures in terms of spatial data are key objectives achieved with the adoption of the system. The mechanisms of the system will be the basis for the envisaged complete automation of the process of control and issuance of certificates by RAE.