The energy market watchdog ANRE admits expectations about the development of the sector did not materialize, as more than two billion euros’ worth of investments will not progress any further than the blueprint stage.
The only area that might still see investments, which witnessed an unprecedented boom during the crisis, is the sector of small projects of less than 0.5 MW, where the government is trying to introduce a feed-in tariff for the power generated.
“Compared with our expectations a lot of projects are not being completed,” said Otilia Marin, general managed in charge of renewable energy and cogeneration with the ANRE.
According to the energy market watchdog, about 4,915 MW in wind farms, solar parks and small hydro-power plants were operational in Romania at the end of August, with wind farms accounting for most of this capacity.
“We reached a nameplate capacity of 4,915 MW in renewable energy projects by the end of August, but we had expected to get to 5,741 MW by yearend and to 6,845 MW by the end of 2015,” the ANRE official added.
Clean energy projects with a capacity of 405 MW are currently under construction, Otilia Marin said.
If these projects are completed, it is hard to believe there will be more investment in the field, following the recent legislative changes. What does this mean? It means that investments worth more than EUR2 billion that ANRE expected to see made based on the documents filed by investors will not materialize.
Romania’s government put in place a green certificate scheme to encourage renewable energy investment, giving clean power producers a number of such certificates for each megawatt of power fed into the grid and setting the price of such a certificate to EUR27-EUR55.
The impact of the scheme on electricity bills made the government amend it, and now it is even considering dropping the requirement for major consumers to buy green certificates. As a result, the development of the clean energy sector stopped.
“We hope the renewable energy sector will continue to develop by promoting small producers,” ANRE official said. The institution has already prepared a solution to support power generation in facilities with a capacity below 0.5 MW, a category that includes small hydropower and biomass plants and rooftop photovoltaic panels, which is not producing effects yet.
The solution entails support for such investment via a feed-in tariff for the power generated not via green certificates.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)