Environmental product fees paid by businesses in Bulgaria for solar panels and lithium-ion batteries are two to 90 times higher than in other EU Member States, Meglena Rusenova, Chair of the Bulgarian Photovoltaic Association, told a news conference at BTA's National Press Club on Tuesday
This drives up investment and production costs, with product fees paid by Bulgarian businesses directly affecting the price of goods. According to Rusenova, the issue is not Bulgaria's membership in the eurozone, but opaque procedures, lack of competition and unclear rules that force Bulgarian businesses and consumers to pay disproportionately high fees. She proposed that the environmental product fees for solar panels and batteries be aligned with those in Bulgaria's neighbours Romania and Greece, or at least kept within the range of average European prices.
Nikola Gazdov, Chairman of the Association for Production, Storage and Trading of Electricity, said that renewable energy helps regulate spikes in electricity prices, with Bulgaria now having nearly 6 gigawatts of solar capacity. The growing number of energy storage systems helps keep electricity prices extremely low during the day and in some cases, even zero, he added. "Batteries help us store the electricity produced during the day and use it at night," he said. Given the current geopolitical situation, this is becoming critically important, he said.
Gazdov noted, however, that product fees in Bulgaria artificially increase the cost of this otherwise cheap electricity. He said the Environment Ministry should amend one of its ordinances and reduce product fees for photovoltaics and batteries to average European levels. He called for product fees to be reduced to the European average: around EUR 50-80 per tonne for recycling solar panels and EUR 300-500 per tonne for recycling energy storage systems. He stressed that, when calculating what is recycled in batteries, only the electrolyte and the electrochemical components should be taken into account.
(bta.bg, March 17, 2026)
