The Romanian Parliament is currently debating the possibility of amending legislation to allow renewable energy providers with an installed capacity below 5 MW to sign bilateral contracts, energynomics.ro has learned.

The change in the Law 220 of 2008, which has been amended several times in recent years, would enable small suppliers to obtain financing easier for ongoing projects, as they would be able to sign long-term bilateral contracts with potential customers that will generate additional bankability in co-financing projects.

“Thus, it would enable small investors in projects to obtain financing for projects stagnating for years. But one of the variants discussed puts some conditions that seem to favor only players who do not sell cheap energy,” said an energy analyst.

“It could also create discrimination between players in the market,” adds another expert, who attended the conference “Acces to the grid ” organized by Govnet on Thursday.

Adoption of the feed-in tariffs is stagnating

At the same time, the sources told us that the adoption of feed-in tariffs for small players, with installed capacity of less than 500 kV, is stagnating.

“The adoption of such a law would help us to do projects with predictable funding”, said a player in the cogeneration market. “This is about predictability when presenting projects to investors,” adds the source.

In February, Niculae Havrileţ, President of the energy regulatory body, ANRE, told energynomics.ro that the subsidy scheme for small renewable energy projects received the green light from the European Commission and expects a final word from the government.

“We expect discussions in government, if it wants to implement a new scheme of ‘feed-in tariffs’ for incentivizing investors in renewable energy projects. The EC agreed, but who actually establishes the effective payment, the actual implementation to the bill of the payment of the feed-in tariff?… Only the government can approve it,“ said Havrileţ.

He also said that producers of up to 2 MW from biomass and biogas will receive a cogeneration bonus.

“The cogeneration bonus is provided by the Gov’t Decision 1215, it is functional, for now just CETs are taking it, but we want to expand it to producers of up to 2 MW from biomass and biogas”, which will thus receive 18 lei per MWh.

He argues that this provision would take effect in the second half of this year.