The quota of green certificates for renewable energy is officially reduced as from January 2014

Romanian Government will cut the quota of green certificates as per the support scheme for renewable energy producers, starting January 1, 2014, according to a Government Decision published by the Official Gazette of Romania. Hence, the wind energy producers will get 1.5 green certificates for each MW on energy supplied to consumers, whereas they currently receive two green certificates. The same decision stipulates, though, that the new established quota will be effective only by the end of 2017, as from 2018 on, there will be applied a new diminution by 0.25, thereby there will remain 1.25 green certificates per MW for wind energy.

The energy producers in small hydropower with a maximum installed capacity of 10 MW will benefit from 2.3 green certificates per MW (0.7 less) in case the SHP is new, otherwise, if the SHP is refurbished, the current support scheme remains unchanged, allocating two green certificates per MW.

As for the PV sector, the solar energy producers are going to face the sharpest reduction in the number of green certificates which will be halved starting next year – they will only get three green certificates per MW, compared with six as they receive now.

Nevertheless, this decision concerns only the renewable energy producers that effectively start the power production from either of the mentioned sources after the Government Decision comes into force, in this case January 1, 2014.

The Government’s revision comes after ANRE, the National Energy Regulatory Authority observed, after running a study that the green energy producers get too many certificates for the energy they supply compared with the investments they make in power plants and therefore, advised the Romanian authorities to cut the quota of green certificates. Through these certificates, Romania supports the production of energy from renewable sources in the attempt of complying with the EU requirement established for 2020 when 20% of the total energy production should be provided by the green energy sector.

This target will have already been achieved this year, as the estimates indicate that 24% of the energy produced in Romania comes from renewable sources. In this situation, this reduction in the number of green certificates might be followed by other similar measures that could affect the further development in this sector that has boosted over the last years.