The regional context, and the green power production that drove prices down created the premises for record high exports of electricity last year even for traditional power producers, so 2014 can be regarded as a bumper year for several segments of the energy sector.
“We had four formidable months since October last year,” says Laurentiu Ciurel, general manager of Complexul Energetic Oltenia (Oltenia Energy Complex).
According to ZF calculations based on the data published by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), Romania’s electricity production overshot the 60.2 TWh mark for the first time since 2003 last year. At the average spot electricity price of 2014, about EUR34.6 per MWh, last year’s production amounted to about EUR2 billion.
The driver of this growth was not domestic consumption, but the demand from abroad.
ENTSO-E statistics show Romania exported almost 8.5 TWh of electricity last year, a record of the last 11 years, with about 14% of its electricity production going to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
Romania’s power exports increased by almost 80% year on year in 2014 to nearly EUR300 million, according to ZF’s calculations.
Most of the power exported came from renewable energy producers, as the green power production reached a record high, too.
Wind farms, solar parks and small hydropower plants injected more than 7.85 TWh into the grid in 2014, 25% more than they did in 2013, according to national electricity transmission system operator Transelectrica (TEL.RO).
Green power accounted for more than 13% of the total power generated in 2014. Clean energy producers got more than EUR400 million worth of green certificates last year, according to Transelectrica data.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)