“The green certificate scheme is a market based mechanism, which will encourage investments in renewable energy in Romania. It will thus support Romania’s objective to reach the 2020 renewable energy targets without unduly distorting competition,” said Joaquin Almunia, Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy.
Romania notified the European Commission in June of its support scheme for renewable energy producers. The law was initiated in 2008 but it required EU approval before coming into force.
Under the support scheme, green certificates are granted to electricity producers for each MWh generated from wind, hydro, biomass, landfill gas, sewage plant treatment gas or solar. If the energy is produced in high efficiency co-generation plants, a bonus is applied. The certificates issued by the state to the producers can be sold to the energy suppliers on a specific market (independent of the electricity market).
In addition, electricity suppliers have the obligation to acquire annually a certain number of green certificates. If they fail to do so they must pay a penalty. The penalties are collected by the transmission system operator and transferred to the Romanian Environmental Fund, which will use them for support to small individual producers of electricity from renewable sources.
Local energy regulator ANRE estimates that the scheme may include some 500 companies, which can join the scheme until December 31, 2016.
The law also states that certain categories of electricity producers have priority access to the power grid.