New owner plans to install storage capacity at Romania's biggest wind farm

Australian investment fund MIRA has reportedly applied to get permits from the Romanian energy market regulator ANRE for installing batteries in the wind farm that it took over from Czech utility group CEZ, Economica.net reported. The Romanian market regulator is close to approving the request.

The storage capacity should cover the primary regulation reserve for the 600MW wind farm, namely 6 MW. Other wind and PV production capacities in Romania will follow.

On the one hand, new legislation comes into force, which compels green energy producers to secure the primary regulation reserve (1% of the nameplate capacity). The primary regulation reserve must be mobilized automatically and fully in a maximum of 30 seconds, at a quasi-stationary deviation of the frequency of plus/minus 200 mHz from the recorded value and must remain in operation for a duration of at least 15 minutes if the violation persists, according to the regulations.

On the other hand, the Government is financing projects to develop electricity storage capacities under an EU-funded scheme.

On November 28, 2022, The Ministry of Energy launched the "project submission procedure to obtain financing for investments in the development of electrical energy storage capacities (batteries)", with funding from Relaunch and Resilience Program (PNRR). The total budget of the scheme is EUR 103 mln. The cost of a 1 MW battery is now around EUR 500,000.

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