Basescu wants the Parliament to review the law concerning the support scheme for green energy

Romania’s President sent back to the Parliament the law with respect to the support scheme for renewable energy producers for re-examination, a press release of the Presidency announces.

The reason is that its provisions have not been previously notified to the EU Commission, thus infringing the Article 103, paragraph (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which stipulates that ‘The Commission shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid.’ And that, despite the Commission sending a letter in this regard on June 24, 2013, followed by another one sent on October 3, 2013 which stresses out the necessity of such notification, obligation the Romanian Government has not met up to this point.

The law in question, which sustains the Government Decision no. 57/2013 regarding the temporary reduction until 2017 and 2018, respectively, (1 GC/ MW for new small hydropower, 2 GCs/MW for solar plants – to be recovered as from April 1, 2017, as well as 1GC/MW for wind power plants – effective until December 31, 2017.) of the quota of green certificates allocated to green energy producers, is considered inopportune and therefore it was not promulgated – ‘Hence, until the obligations stated by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union are fulfilled, we regard the ratification of the Government Decision no. 57/2013 as being inopportune and exposing Romania to prior complaints for the violation of the constituent treaties of the European Union‘ is stated by the same press release.

Unlike the Government Decision, the law has an additional provision specifying that the temporary cutback affects only the producers who get permits by December 31, 2013, in this case the initial stipulations remaining effective. Under these circumstances and given the latest changes regarding the reduction of the quota of green certificates which came into force at the beginning of the new year, the support the new producers entering the renewable energy market in 2014 benefit from will even more drastically reduced until the law will be eventually promulgated. So, while they were supposed to receive 3 GCs for solar energy, 1.5 GCs for wind energy and 2.3 GCs for each MWh produced in new small hydropower with an installed capacity which does not exceed 10 MW, they will actually get only 1 GC, 0.5 GCs, and 1.3 GCs, respectively.