Romanian coal provider has 725 MW of PV under development

Romanian coal power provider Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CE Oltenia) plans to build eight PV plants with a combined capacity of 725 MW at several of its coal power facilities, according to its 2021-2025 decarbonization plan.

Three projects are planned to be located at the coal power plants SE Rovinari, SE Turceni, and SE Ișalnița and five more plants are expected to be built at the coal mining sites Tismana, Tismana 2, Pinoasa, Bohorel, and Rovinari Est.

These solar parks are being developed to replace the coal power capacity that the company wants to decommission by 2026, when its total capacity should reach 3.09 GW, from 3.24 GW currently. In March 2020, CE Oltenia issued a tender to seek consultants for four of the eight projects. 

The European Commission is supporting the company’s decarbonization plan with a RON1.2 billion ($281.7 million) loan. CE Oltenia’s coal power complex consists of 12 generation units with a combined capacity of 3.24 GW.

Currently, there are other large scale PV projects under development after the government introduced more favorable rules for power purchase agreements, in May 2020.

These include, among others, a 111 MW solar park being developed by the OMV Petrom energy supplier majority-owned by Austrian business OMV, a 700 MW project that is set to be spread across the municipalities of Grăniceri and Pilu, and another one under development by CE Oltenia, which wants to deploy 310 MW at one of its coal power facilities.