In 2010, renewable resources were largely untapped. Romania provides an attractive location for green energy investors, developers and operators looking for alternative markets outside the conventional Western European countries.
Taking in consideration that the primary objective of Romania was to ensure compliance with the mandatory renewable energy target of Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources by 2020, Romanian renewable energy market “suffered” a remarkable growth in the past several years.
The country made crucial steps to reach renewable energy targets for 2020 set by its government in 2007, and at national level the Romanian energy strategy for the period of 2007-2020, as approved by the Government Decision № 1069/2007, establishes the level of national targets concerning the shares of electricity generated from renewable energy sources in the final consumption of electricity renewable energy generation.
Even if, starting with mid 2013 Romanian legislators considered that it`s time for the renewable energy “boom” to be seriously slowed, 2014 continued to be a year of serious development of renewable sector. 2015 was the year that although development has slowed considerably, not less than 250 MW were put into operation.
2016 was the year of expectations, but by the end of the year the legislative changes to improve the complicated situation of renewable energy did not appear. The emergency ordinance was approved in March 2017, but this does not entirely solve the desperate situation of renewable energy producers.
Even so, by end of 2016, the renewable energy represent an important component of the national energy mix:
- 1.296 MW from solar energy;
- 2.931 MW from wind energy;
- 327 MW from microhidro;
- 106 MW from biomass;
- 1.017 MW from cogeneration.*
* Informations obtained from Transelectrica website