Any state intervention creates market distortions, and new taxes such as the tax on special constructions, popularly called the “pole tax”, are no exception, investors present at the Solar Energy Bucharest Summit exhibition told Energynomics.
Many investors argue that they no longer need financing or support schemes if they can recoup their investment in a few years. At the same time, it seems that the market has understood that projects without storage can no longer be launched. Stand-alone storage projects can benefit from good market price spreads, between charging and re-injection, of around 150 euros, and if the batteries are part of a park, the margin drops by 30-40 euros, but it still amortizes the investment, speculating peak and off-peak periods and becoming an addition to the cost (CAPEX) of any project. Currently the market is dominated by negative prices because no such investments have been made, but important storage projects are foreseen in the future. Finally, several new battery factories will appear soon, with a large Chinese concern to launch such a factory in Oltenița. These are some of the conclusions of the Solar Energy Bucharest Summit, where Energynomics discussed with a significant part of the companies present.
The pole tax is not a good idea and I hope that there will be a reassessment of this measure, so that it is abandoned, also stated the vice-president of the Committee for Industries and Services of the Chamber of Deputies, Cristina Prună.
“I would also like to refer a little to the pole tax, which I know has upset the investment plans of investors in this sector. Of course, I personally do not think that it is a good idea. We had this experiment again in another social-democratic government many years ago. At that time, it was recognized that it was a mistake. I honestly do not see what advantage this pole tax would bring, not even to the state budget, because that was actually the conclusion at that time,” she said.
For his part, Dan Drăgan gave a dimension to the storage market: if currently 1.6 GWh projects are contracted, it will reach 2.5 – 3GWh in the short term, including following co-financing with European funds.
“Romania’s only problem remains the market volume. The other day I was talking to a large Chinese trust with a turnover of 70 billion dollars: almost a quarter of Romania’s GDP, which remains a small country for them,” claims an energy expert.
