The new draft amendment to the renewables law only helps the consumer, while the green energy producers lack advantages, argued industry leaders present at the event “Renewables – support for the green promise”, organized energynomics.ro on Thursday. The new draft amendment to the Law 220 is in the public debate until Friday, November 4th.

In the market there are nearly 700 companies specializing in renewable energy production, of which 500 are small, with projects below 3 MW, said Zoltan Nagy-Bege, member of Regulatory Committee of the market‘s regulatory body, ANRE.

“I would have expected to see interpretations in favor of small players (in the new project), unfortunately I have not seen any,” says Nagy-Bege.

“Ideal would have been that small producers have another scheme eventually a feed-in based one (regulated tariffs), which have no link with authority [e.n. ANRE] not to make the process more bureaucratic – of course, in Romania is very difficult to achieve something like that”, he said.

In an interview published Thursday by the website Invest Energy, State Secretary Corina Popescu answered the question whether investors will still be interested in green energy in Romania, in the absence of support schemes: “It depends on technological development. Currently Romania has somehow achieved its target for 2020 and beyond. If we manage to calm down and to stabilize the situation, I think there will be investors interested in the renewables. Investments should not be done necessarily from support schemes,” said Corina Popescu.

Romania has achieved green energy targets pledged to the European Union with the help of the producers, and now it destroys them, says Claudia Brânduş, president of the association of wind energy investors RWEA.

“The new project helps the consumer and the producers are not any way advantaged: not the small, nor the big ones,” says Brânduş.

The renewable energy producers associations have written a response to the new law that they will submit to the Energy Ministry no later than Friday, November 4.

Autor: Bogdan Tudorache

Active in the economic and business press for the past 26 years, Bogdan graduated Law and then attended intensive courses in Economics and Business English. He went up to the position of editor-in-chief since 2006 and has provided management and editorial policy for numerous economic publications dedicated especially to the community of foreign investors in Romania. From 2003 to 2013 he was active mainly in the financial-banking sector. He started freelancing for Energynomics in 2013, notable for his advanced knowledge of markets, business communities and a mature editorial style, both in Romanian and English.