Even though the government issued an ordinance reducing the number of certificates, investments in green energy are still profitable and RCS&RDS could recover costs with buying the solar farms in about five years.
According to the latest information available, the telecom operator owned by Zoltan Teszari, has five solar PV parks, which it bought from various companies that had started developing them. The first farm connected to the national power grid was developed by Energiafoto SRL, which manages three 2.9 MW solar farms in Braila County (SE Romania).
RCS&RDS started selling power on the electricity exchange in May, where it found a buyer for the production of the three farms, electricity supplier Romenergy Industry. Energiafoto will sell about EUR686,000 worth of electricity to it until April 30, 2014.
The company could also collect another EUR205,000 from the electricity generated by a 2.74-megawatt farm in Bihor County (NW Romania), developed by Delalina SRL. It is offering a minimum guaranteed amount of 4,560 MW on the energy exchange OPCOM, at 200 lei (EUR45) per MW as of July 20. The bidding will take place on July 12.
RCS&RDS also owns Firatelectric SRL, which is developing a 3 MW farm in Braila County. Once completed, the farm should generate revenues of about EUR180,000 a year, if prices on the electricity market stay the same. Another company RCS&RDS owned was Energyall Distribution SRL, which was working on a 5 MW solar farm, but was sold to its previous owners in May.
Most of the solar power revenue will come from the sale of green certificates producers of clean energy get as a reward from the government, which power suppliers are required to buy.
The green power support scheme modified by the government as of July 1 says producers of solar power get four certificates per megawatt, with two more to come starting 2017 for the production between July 1, 2013 and January 1, 2017.
The average price per certificate was EUR40.5 in March-May, according to OPCOM data. If the price per certificate does not change, RCS&RDS could collect EUR3.8 million from sale of certificates to suppliers in one year, on top of the money generated by electricity sales, ZF has calculated. The amount includes the revenue from the sale of the electricity generated by Firatelectric SRL.
The clean energy business should generate a total of about EUR5 million a year for the telecom operator, according to ZF’s calculations. RCS&RDS officials did not return ZF’s calls for comment by the time the story was ready for posting.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)