EC revives plans for large-sized Dutch-funded wind farms in Romania

A large-size EUR 1 billion wind farm project to be developed in Romania but funded under the renewable energy scheme of the Netherlands is among the cross-border projects in the field of renewable energy proposed for financing under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) by consultancy firm Ernst & Young, according to a document drafted in July and posted recently by the European Commission’s Energy Directorate.

The logic of the project is deploying green energy generation capacities at lower costs than in the Netherlands, Economica.net reported.

The benefits for the European Union consist in the potentially lower cost of deployment of such technology in Romania and, possibly, the supplementary green capacities replacing more polluting generation capacities that the project would replace if developed in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is interested in achieving its green energy quota, the study argues, while Romania “is interested in additional RES (renewable energy sources) deployment on its territory that it does not need to pay for but will create local value added,” the study reads.

One topic insufficiently covered at this stage by the E&Y report is the impact on the Romanian power grid balancing.

“Security of supply” would not change upon the implementation of the project, the study reads, but, considering the capacity of the wind farms (some 1,000MW), the project would need significant balancing resources (other power generating units that can compensate the lower output of wind farms when there’s no wind).

The largest of the two wind farms envisaged would be located in south-eastern Romania, where the wind capacity is already concentrated and the nuclear plant Cernavoda plans to double its capacity to 2.8 GW in the future.

(Photo: Pixabay)