Investments in the network, storage and digitalization are paramount for the coming period, and renewable projects need collateral offered including through bilateral contracts (PPA) and contracts for difference (CfD) to boost the energy transition, were the conclusions of the PowerShift Summit 2024 event, organized by the main renewable industry associations – RWEA and RPIA.
“We need storage, which is the most handy right now. This is mandatory. We’ll see if prosumers are willing to do that. We need to convince people to do something about it. Let’s stimulate the prosumers, let’s realize that they help us and not to scare those who want to become energy producers,” said Andrei Manea, executive director of RPIA.
For now, however, things are moving slowly, especially in the wind sector. Liviu Gavrilă, vice president of RWEA, says that 2024 was a rather weak year for the industry, except for the CfD program. And the volume of signed PPAs is still quite small.
“Putting aside this year, which is a failure from a wind perspective, except for the long-awaited CfD – once again, we are approaching November 18 and everyone has high expectations for this auction – otherwise, in truth, it’s not a big deal, on the other hand, there are some construction plans, there are over 500 MW contracted – you’ve only seen how much Vestas has already announced – large-scale parks have also started – such as PPC’s from Vaslui, Resolve, Eurowind, etc. We are in the following paradigm: by 2030 we need 8-11 GW of wind energy, according to the models,” said Liviu Gavrila.
He claims that the pace of developments is very slow, and investors need legislative predictability and stability. In addition, the currently delayed works will put huge pressure on the last period of the 2020-2030 period, when there will also be pressure on financial and human resources and on the agreed terms of commissioning.
“Interventionism has a huge cost. And when you are in a coupled market, and you create your own paradigm, instead of following what everyone else in the market is doing, then you sit and wonder why you have the prices you have,” also said Liviu Gavrila.
