Romania’s renewable capacities rose by 2.9 percent in 2015 despite cut of incentives

New renewable capacities have been put online last year in Romania, despite the difficult market, which was marked by significant changes in the incentives scheme in the past two years.

According to grid operator Transelectrica, fresh renewable capacities of 124MW started operations in 2015, which is a 2.9 percent increase on the previous year.

Romania’s renewable installations reached a total capacity of 4.400MW last year. Wind remained the leading technology, with a share of 67.7 percent, followed by solar with 29.6 percent of the total installations, according to a Transelectrica report. Large foreign utilities, including Austrian Verbund, Czech CEZ and Italian Enel own wind projects in the country.

In 2015, the renewable sector accounted for 15 percent of all the electricity generated in Romania, which stood at 61.7 TWh, stated the grid operator.

At present, the renewable producers get revenues from the sale of green certificates and of electricity.

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The issuance of some green certificates for producers has been deferred through to 2017 by the government, while big energy consumers are almost completely exempted from the acquisition of these certificates.

The large industrial players said they were losing their competitive edge due to the spike in electricity prices, which they say was triggered by the generous support scheme for the renewable sector.

Ovidiu Posirca