One of the biggest problems of the Romanian energy system, which can no longer be corrected, is the fact that the legislation has allowed prosumers to install photovoltaic energy production capacities that are too large in relation to their own consumption needs, and these capacities are not dispatchable, said Mihai David, CSO Bepco and president of COGEN Romania.
“The problem with prosumers is that we encourage them to install capacity that is not dispatchable. One of the major problems, which can no longer be corrected, is that prosumers have been allowed to install very large capacities. Consumers should be encouraged, but within the limits of what they can consume,” said David, at the conference “Digitalization and energy efficiency – Brașov 2024” organised by Energynomics and the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania.
He said there are physical difficulties in the electricity grids, but also financial problems related to the high costs of the national energy system. Mihai David warned that by 2030, if the renewable energy targets set in the national energy strategy are met, Romania will have difficulties in securing electricity supply to consumers due to imbalances.
Between 2019 and 2023, the installed capacity in all power generation units nationwide decreased from 24,600 MW to 18,200 MW. Meanwhile, at the end of last year, prosumers owned units with a cumulative capacity of 1,400 MW. Continuing at this pace, installed capacity in solar power plants will exceed 3-4 GW.
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“At this rate, it’s going to get to the point where by noon it’s going to be doom and gloom. This will lead to negative energy prices, and without storage this will lead to the bankruptcy of many suppliers and producers. The imbalances will grow tremendously, given that the energy strategy envisages a lot of solar and wind to be installed by 2030, an increase of more than 300% from 2023 to 15.5 GW. In this context, we need to prepare ahead of time if we don’t want to go into chaos, and that means storing energy and increasing interconnection capacity with other markets,” David said.
One of the solutions that could help to regulate the system is digitisation, but also increased interconnection of the national energy system with neighbouring countries. Utilising national gas reserves would also contribute significantly to market stability.
The conference “Digitalization and energy efficiency – Brașov 2024” was organised by Energynomics and the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania, with the support of our partners: Bepco, Exim Banca Românească, ICAP CRIF, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, Polytrade Global, SolarX Power, Unicredit Bank, WALDEVAR Energy, WEBUS 4 ENERGY.