Romania is going through the most prolific period from the perspective of funds available for investments in the production of renewable energy, but the “major” risk of disengagement should not be neglected, said Dan Bold, Business Development Manager at REI Group.
“It is perhaps the most prolific period of funds that we are experiencing (…) but we are under the risk of losing them, because in this tumultuous funding period there is a major risk of disengagement”, said Bold, during the conference “New wave of renewables”, organized by Energynomics.
In October alone, Romania has non-reimbursable funds of one billion euros at hand, half of which is for local public authorities. “It’s our only chance as a country to become competitive,” added Bold. The project implementation deadlines are very short, and they must be functional by December 2023, in order to lose European co-financing.
This risk is caused by the very tight deadlines in which companies interested in accessing non-reimbursable funds or grants have at their disposal to develop and submit their projects, but also by the extremely short period in which the projects declared eligible will have to be put into operation, respectively the end of 2023.
However, there is a possibility that the implementation period will be extended by six months, until June 2024, if the Romanian authorities request this from Brussels. In addition, the authorities promised to reduce from 12 months to 1-2 months the evaluation periods of submitted projects, in order to expedite their approval and implementation and not to exceed the periods established by the European Commission.
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Interest in attracting these funds is extremely high, both from residential and industrial clients. Another difficulty is represented by the capacity of the national energy system to absorb in a very short period of time such a large volume of energy to be generated by future energy projects from renewable sources.
“We have money and we have perhaps too many projects in relation to our ability to absorb them and implement them in the national energy system. There are a lot of projects, and the energy system is quite old,” said Bold.
The conference “New wave of renewables“ was organized by Energynomics with the support of our partners: ABB, BCR, Eaton Electric, EnergoBit, EnergoPower, Enevo Group, Phoenix Contact, Photomate, REI Group, Simtel, Volt, Wiren.