E-RES in Romania
Adresa
Strada General Budişteanu Constantin, Nr. 28C
010775 Bucureşti, Sector 1
Telefon
+40-21-312.58.88
Fax
+40-21-312.58.89
Website
www.noerr.com
Introduction
The promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources (E-RES) has seen a lot of support in the last years in the EU. The case for electricity sourced from renewable generating plants was set as a high priority for the Romanian energy policy in principal for a number of different reasons.
Romania was in 2003 one of the first EU candidate countries transposing into domestic legislation the provisions of the Directive 2001/77/EC on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market and adopted in accordance with the EU Commission’s recommendation an action plan called “The Energy Strategy of Romania for the period 2007-2020”.
E-RES promise an increase in the energy independence from fossil fuels and in the security of energy supply, amid reducing the energy price risk. Renewables reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Medium and longterm climate chance is relying on zero carbon technologies or carbon capture. Finally E-RES ensures the economic and social cohesion by improving the basic energy needs.
The cumulative effect of all the benefits from E-RES makes a robust case for supporting renewables. However, compared with the conventional generation technologies, it becomes apparent that E-RES technologies are characterized by high investment costs per unit of produced electricity. Therefore in practice member states operate different mechanisms of support for E-RES. However, such support schemes is envisaged only in the medium term, whilst in the long run costs are presumed to come down rapidly, due to increasing economies of scale and technological advance. Therefore, in order to lower the costs associated with E-RES technologies, the Government action plan supports some fiscal investments facilities, i.e. accelerated depreciation.
In addition to this, the new guidelines on environmental state aid provide important changes. Member States can grant up to 100% of the additional costs of investing in renewable energy by combining investment aid and operating aid. The amount of investment aid that can be thus granted has been increased from 40% to 60% of the additional cost of generating renewable energy. Finally, companies producing renewable energy for their own use will now be eligible to receive both operating and investment aid (where previously they could only receive investment aid).
Energy consumption and indicative targets
Romania’s energy consumption needs are covered up to 70% from the domestic fossil fuels and hydropower production. The share of E-RES in the primary domestic energy consumption is around 5.3%, while the average figure at EU level is about 4%, with increasing trends in all E-RES sectors, especially in the wind energy sector. The domestic target allocated for the share of energy from renewable sources in final consumption is 17.8% and will grow up to 24% by 2020.
A large potential for the domestic energy production is in hydro, wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy sources. This confirmed also by the domestic energy strategy for the period 2007-2020, which suggests an indicative target for the E-RES potential as follows:
One must take note, that these figures mirror rather the theoretical potential of the domestic production. A new evaluation of the real E-RES sources is expected to be conducted by the Government this year.
However, realizing that any such indicative target is still far from reaching, we consider it to be a useful exercise for future policy directions.
Renewable energy sources
On the wind segment, five distinct wind areas have been identified in Romania, based on the existent energy potential and taking into account the environmental and geographical conditions.
The wind map of Romania has been elaborated by taking into consideration the energy potential of the wind sources at the average altitude of 50 m, based on the meteorological data and information which have been collected since 1990.
The results indicate that Romania has a temperate – continental climate – with a high wind energy potential along the black sea coast, the plateaus from Moldova and Dobrogea (“mild climate”) or the mountainous areas (“severe climate”). In areas with relatively high wind potential, favorable locations have been identified, in case the “energetic use of the flowing effect over the hill top” or the “canalization effect of the air currents” is pursued. Based on the preliminary assessments from the coastal areas, including off-shore areas, on short and medium term, a wind energetic potential of round 2,000 MW can be developed, with an average amount of electrical energy of 4,500 GWh/year. The off-shore locations, 3 to 5 km on the continental plateau (up to the sea depth of 5 m), are considered as efficient on long term (over 20 years).
In solar, biomass and geothermal there is also a significant domestic potential which is currently subject to further market analysis and resource evaluations, both from the public and private side.
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