Romania’s PV capacity grew by only 3 MW in 2017

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Romania saw the addition of just 3 MW of installed solar PV power in 2017, according to official figures released by the country’s grid operator, Transelectrica, and which were provided to pv magazine by the Romanian Photovoltaic Industry Association (RPIA).

Last year’s poor performance represents a strong drop compared to 2016, where new additions totaled 78.2 MW, and 2015, when newly installed capacity reached 70.4 MW.

Overall, cumulative installed PV capacity is currently around 1,374 MW as of the end of last December. The vast majority of the capacity comes in the form of large-scale solar plants developed under the country’s green certificate scheme, which was launched in 2011, and expired at the end of 2016.

As predicted by RPIA, the reduction of the mandatory quota of electricity produced from renewable energy sources benefiting from the green certificate scheme from 12.1% in 2016, to 8.3% in 2017, has strongly contributed to the slowing down of the Romanian solar market.

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“Decisive also was the fact that, since Jan. 1, 2017, the country has no more incentive scheme for solar,” the association stated. “For sure the current legislation must be changed, because Romania need to achieve the new target of renewable installed capacity for 2030, but we can not say now how and when this will happen,” the association said.

The long-expected new provisions for net-metering under 100 kW may be published in a few weeks, according to local industry sources. The introduction of such rules could be a panacea for a market, which is in urgent need of more action.

Under the scheme, PV system owners will be entitled to sell surplus electricity to the country’s four power distributors, which are Enel, CEZ, E.On and Electrica, at a rate that will be set by ANRE, depending on the distributors.

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