Romania launches rebate scheme to support solar under net metering

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Romania's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change has launched a new solar rebate scheme for residential PV.

The scheme, dubbed “Casa Verde” (Green House), was conceived to spur development of small-sized rooftop PV projects, which are eligible to sell excess power to the grid under the new rules for net metering, which were approved by the Romanian Parliament in late June.

According to the document published by the ministry, rebates will be granted to residential PV projects and may cover up to 90% of the costs of purchasing and deploying a rooftop array, provided that the grant does not exceed 20,000 RON (around $4,800).

The ministry stressed that installation costs may not represent more than 15% of the project’s total costs, and that grants will be awarded to residential projects with a capacity equal to, or larger than, 3 kW.

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According to Romanian financial newspaper Economica, the tariff the Romanian authorities will pay for injected surplus power under net metering will correspond to the spot market price. However, the price will not be set at the time of delivery, but will reflect the price of the previous year.

The net metering regulations approved in June also include a series of fiscal breaks for owners of PV systems with a capacity of up to 27 kW. Under this scheme, owners of renewable energy power systems up to 100 kW are entitled to sell power surplus to the country’s four power distributors – Enel, CEZ, E. On and Electrica – at a rate that will be set by ANRE, depending on the distributors.

Net metering combined with solar rebates may revive the Romanian solar market after a year – 2017 – in which only 3 MW of new PV power was deployed in the country. Most of Romania’s installed PV power is represented by solar parks installed under the green certificate scheme, which was closed at the end of 2016.

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