CEZ stands to collect 1.8 billion lei (EUR400 million) from the green certificates it should receive between July 2013 and March 2017, when the suspension of the stimulus should be lifted, CEZ Romania’s chief executive Jan Veskrna said Thursday.
“We have invested about EUR1.1 billion in wind projects in Romania. The latest developments regarding the support scheme indicate the investment would not be recovered any time soon,” Veskrna told reporters.
The Czech utility operates the Fantanele-Cogealac windfarm in Romania. With an installed capacity of 600 megawatts, the project is the largest onshore windfarm in Europe.
Romanian producers of renewable energy benefit from government support via a green certificates scheme, which allows them to recover part of the production costs.
However, the government decided earlier June to temporarily reduce the number of certificates granted under the scheme, triggering wide protests from investors, who threatened to limit investments or abandon their projects altogether.