Romania's energy authority may cut green certificates awarded to solar power plants in response to falling investment needs

Romania's energy regulator ANRE may recommend a reduction in the incentives given to solar energy projects. The proposed reduction would cut the green certificates awarded per megawatt of capacity from six to five in response to the reducing investment needs of solar projects. “We need to analyze the 2012 report on investment costs and we will see whether the number of green certificates needs to be reduced or not,” said ANRE chief Nicolae Havrilet today (November 19 ) at the Romanian Solar Summit in Bucharest, quoted by business news service Bloomberg. He added that as per current legislation, the earliest any changes could come into effect would be in January 2014.

Bloomberg also quotes ANRE's Zoltan Nagy- Bege as saying that Romania could have up to 100 megawatts produced by solar energy by the end of this year and as much as 1,500 megawatts by 2016. The investment level needed to produce energy via solar power plants has reportedly halved in the last two years to around EUR 1.5 million per megawatt, according to Bloomberg. The Romanian renewable energy sector has seen a lot of recent investments as the country tries to meet commitments made to reduce carbon emissions by 2020. Energy firms CEZ, EP Global Energy, Enel and Suzlon, among others, are currently involved in wind farm projects in Romania. Chinese photovoltaic cell producer Renesola bought into Lucas Est, which runs a solar energy plant in Prahova country, at the the end of September. Meanwhile, Portuguese firm Martifer Solar finalized a 1.5 MW solar park in Vrancea county at the end of July this year. The new solar power plant was connected to the power grid in August. Read the full Bloomberg article. Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com photo source: sxc.hu