The European Commission adopted last Friday a decision authorizing the changes to the green certificates (CV) support scheme for the production of energy from renewable sources, announced the Ministry of Energy. “The European Commission welcomes the amendments as being in line with the Commission’s rules regarding the state aid. Along with the approval of the Commission all the legal conditions for the achievement of a reform in the renewable energy field, have been met,” it is shown in a statement.
Through the approval from the European Commission, last week, regarding the amendments to the green certificates support scheme, the draft for amending and supplementing Law no. 220/2008 establishing the system for promoting energy production from renewable energy sources meets all the legal requirements in order to be promoted.
“A balanced solution has been identified as a mechanism to promote the renewable energy production, and the decision regarding the adoption of the reform is left to a political government which has the support of Parliament.
The lack of a decision in due time, regarding the adopting of reforms for the market of energy producers from renewable sources, should not affect the final consumer and the continuation of the current mandatory annual quota system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources will be made in accordance with the recommendations of ANRE according to the law”, reads the release of the Ministry of Energy.
But the EC approval comes amid the protests of the small producers, which were addressed in part to DG Competition. While the changes satisfied mostly the large producers and mainly those from the wind energy, which have previously submitted a favorable opinion on the new changes, the small producers say that massive bankruptcies are already being on course, because the changes are not supportive.
The PATRES Investors Federation, which represents many small companies with Romanian capital, claims that the new ordinance amending Law 220/2008 of renewables “sacrifices the small and medium investors, especially the domestic capital invested in renewables,” as it is shown in a press release to energynomics.ro on late November.
The main changes to the scheme are:
- the calculation of the rate of CV (the new method of calculation will result in a more even distribution of the impact on the final consumer);
- increasing the duration of validity of the certificates (CV issued from January 1st, 2017 will be valid until December 31st, 2031)
- extending the period of deferral and the recovery of the deferred CV;
- CV will be recorded as a value only when they are traded;
- trading mode (it will be restricted, the transactions will be made on a centralized market of V);
- the transfer mode of the CV costs to the final consumers;
- the minimum and maximum values of CV (minimum 29.4 EUR / CV and maximum 35 EUR / CV);
- a maximum acceptable impact is intoduced for the end consumer in the amount of 11.1 euros / MWh.
The other elements of the scheme remain unchanged (duration, financing, cumulation rules), says the Ministry of Energy.
