Report: Romanian wind energy projects require 85 permits, 13 years for return on equity

Investors in wind energy projects in Romania need to receive around 85 permits and authorizations to initiate and implement a project, and it can take up to two – three years from the initiation phase to the implementation, found a recent report on wind energy created by TPA Horwath and Schoenherr & Asociatii. The total expense in starting such a project is of around EUR 1.6 million for each MW of wind energy, while the annual cost of exploiting it reaches EUR 1.8 million for each MW, according to TPA Horwath.

85 percent of the expenses to create a wind project is covered by the cost if wind turbines. Roads and foundations require another 7 percent, while the design costs reach 4 percent of the total. The Grid connection costs reach some 2 percent – around EUR 32,000. The exploitation phase brings EUR 1.2 million in costs for operations and maintenance, with overheads – some other EUR 228,000. Energy balancing, insurance, energy for internal use and the land tax cover the difference up to EUR 1.8 million, according to the report. The rate of profitability over five analyzed wind energy projects was of 9 percent, while the average of period return on equity is of about 13 years. Romania, one of the rising stars of Europe in the renewable energy area, ranks mid-way through the top of the EU 27 countries based on its wind energy installed capacity at the end of 2010. With 462 MW of wind energy, Romania ranks higher than Hungary, the Czech Republic, Finland, but still far from the leader Germany, with 27,214 MW of wind farm capacity,according to the report. Romania hopes to reach an installed capacity of 1,000 MW by the end of 2011, which represents a rapid growth over the last couple of years, when the renewable energy sector in Romania has started to pick up. For comparison, the leaders in wind energy are the Chinese, with 44,733 MW of installed wind energy projects. USA follows with 40,180 MW of installed capacity and Germany comes third, with 27,214 MW. Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com (photo source: Sxc.hu)