The company plays a key part in the integration of wind farms, as the entity that watches over the safety of the national energy system.
“The signing of the contracts has not been suspended, it is only temporarily put off because of the very high volume of requests and the high volume of documents that need to be checked with every application,” say Transelectrica representatives.
After signing contracts to connect to the grid, wind farm investors can start construction, having basically secured a place in the system.
However, in the last two years announcements of investments in wind energy projects have been very numerous, with “wind mills” becoming as hot a topic as deals on the real estate market were during the years of economic growth.
The main draw for companies in the renewable energy sector is the support scheme devised by the Romanian authorities. In addition to this generous system, wind energy also benefits from very good weather conditions, especially in Dobrogea (SE Romania).
At the beginning of last month, Transelectrica data show that over 8,200 MW of wind power projects, equivalent to the capacity of more than 11 reactors of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant, had contracts to connect to the grid. For instance, Hidroelectrica, Romania’s largest energy producer, has hydroelectric power stations with a cumulated capacity of 6,400 MW.
The 8,200 MW of wind power project level, reached at the beginning of last month, far exceeds the current 3,000 MW capacity of the national energy system. The problem with renewable energies in general is their unreliability. In order for the operation of the energy system not to be disrupted by large capacities going online and offline, one needs regulating units that can go online and offline just as quickly.
However, these capacities are currently insufficient compared with investments announced in wind farms, so the development of these projects needs to be correlated with the system’s ability to integrate them.
(English version by Daniela Stoican, Editing by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)