OMV Petrom, the largest energy company in Romania, plans to develop a photovoltaic park with a capacity of 111 MW in southern Romania. This would become the biggest such project in the country.

OMV Petrom intends to build the park on the site of its former Doljchim chemical plant.

OMV Petrom decommissioned and greened the site when it decided to exit the petrochemistry segment.

The value of the investment in the new PV park would be RON 400 million (EUR 83 mln), according to sources familiar with the project quoted by Economica.net. Out of this, OMV Petrom expects to receive half (EUR 41.5 mln) as a grant from European Union funds under the Modernization Fund - mechanism 10d of the European EU-ETS directive, through which Romania and nine other less developed EU countries receive funds for green energy projects.

The PV park would not be OMV Petrom’s first investment in the renewable energy sector. In 2017, the group sold for EUR 23 mln the 45 MW Dorobantu wind farm it had previously bought and developed in eastern Romania. At that time, the company said that renewables were no longer a strategic business, but it changed its position in the meantime.

This spring, the company announced that it had already installed PV panels in 40 of its fuel stations and aimed to expand the project to another 38 stations this year.

Romania currently has installed capacities of 1,383 MW in photovoltaics.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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