The Committee on Industry and Services of the Chamber of Deputies approved most of the amendments to the legislation on renewable energy, along with industry leaders during the week, with the exception of an amendment regarding small domestic producers (prosumers), but, alas, industry sources told energynomics.ro that some changes might still occur.
The draft law will be introduced to the plenary debate on 22 May, but until then there were new opinions requested to some ministries and new discussions on amendments, the sources said.
The main changes include the introduction of pro-rata green certificates, the emergence of virtual centrals, the possibility of receiving green certificates above the initially notified value of production (at the actual actual value rather than the originally notified value) and compensation for investor losses, through an increase of the impact to the consumer, by 2022.
“As for yesterday’s talks (e.n. Tuesday, May 15th), today (e.n. Wednesday, May 16th) there have been new debates on the pro-rata allocation system, which we consider to be better than current time stamp one, based on the high delays for some players in the system. OPCOM would like to keep the current system,” the source told energynomics.ro.
“Then there are talks on energy exports, which implies the payment of own certificates – a fact that is not suitable for the suppliers, the Ministry of Finance has not yet completed the conditions for the prosumer and a point of view has been asked of the Ministry of Economy on the gradual increase of the the impact on the consumer – which could bring new changes to the already approved amendments,” the source added.
The authorities have recently decided to further reduce the share of green certificates and players are trying to recover ground by increasing the amount suppoerted by the consumer. If it does not succeed in doing so, many investors, particularly small ones, will refuse to “come from home with their own money” and will tacitly accept insolvency or bankruptcy of the projects they have incurred so far.
The situation on the green certificates and renewable energy market is still dramatic. The small players think that it has reached a critical point from where either the Romanian state urgently takes steps to save this crucial area of the energy market, or the fate of these investments is sealed, and the confidence of the investors – permanently lost.
