The group also got orders for new turbines that could be installed in 2013, said Romulus Buhaescu, GE Energy service manager for Romania and Bulgaria.
“We already have two contracts signed this year for another 27 units (2.5 megawatts each i.e.). They will be installed in Galati County and around Macin in Tulcea County (both counties are in SE Romania i.e.),” Buhaescu said.
Most of the turbines that GE brought in Romania, 240, were installed in the Fantanele-Cogealac wind farm that Czech-held CEZ has in Dobruja (SE Romania). With a capacity of 600 megawatts, almost as much as one reactor of the Cernavoda nuclear plant in the same part of the country, it is the largest on-shore wind farm in Europe.
Wind power was the star of the energy sector last year, attracting EUR1.5 billion investments. The capacity installed in Romania rose from 826 megawatts at the end of 2011 to almost 2,000 megawatts in late 2012.
Investors might have to rethink their plans for renewable energy investments this year because of indications that the Romanian authorities are considering adjusting the support scheme to make it less generous.
Investors in clean energy are currently rewarded by the government with a variable number of certificates for each megawatt of power generated, depending on the technology used (wind farms, solar PVs, biomass etc). Under the law each certificate is worth EUR27 to EUR55. The certificates are then purchased by electricity suppliers, which are required to include a specific percentage of green power in the power basket supplied to customers.
Even if the government does nothing to modify clean energy subsidies, the current legislation says projects connected to the national grid after 2016 are not eligible for the support scheme. Which is why Buhaescu believes the wind farm boom will continue for another two years at least.
On the other hand, the GE official does not see as bright a future for solar PV investments, currently rewarded with six green certificates, compared with two, which wind power investments get.
He says that judging from what he heard at conferences and from the messages coming from the government, solar PV investments will suffer a little, because they will get fewer certificates. Buhaescu expects the number of certificates to go down to five or four.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)