Energy – THE STUDY ON INVESTOR ACCESS TO THE RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY MARKET HAS BEEN FINALISED – Brief

THE STUDY ON INVESTOR ACCESS TO THE RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY MARKET HAS BEEN FINALISED

Competition Council and the National Energy Regulatory Authority (NERA) have completed
the study on investors’ access to the renewable electricity generation market and publish the
final version, after the comments received from the Federation Associations of Energy Utilities
Companies (FAEUC).
Therefore, FAEUC submitted a number of comments to the recommendations proposed by
the two authorities, referring, inter alia, to the amendment of the applicable legislation on
grid connection and the harmonisation of connection procedures at the level of distribution
system operators.
The study shows that the most common problems that companies face when entering the
market for the production of electricity from renewable sources relate to the administrative
authorisation process (bureaucracy, non-transparent processes, long time to issue technical
approval for connection – TAC) and to the legislative framework, which is interpretable and
insufficient. Other problems identified relate to insufficient investments in the development
of electricity grids, lack of experience in working with renewable projects of staff involved at
various stages the authorisation process or the development of speculative investments.
Thus, the Competition Council and NERA issued a series of recommendations to the Ministry
of Energy, the transmission system operator and the distribution system operator in order to
remove the legislative, bureaucratic and financial barriers, as well as those generated by the
insufficient development of the electricity transmission and distribution networks within the
connection process to the network.
In this respect, the proposals made include the implementation of a one-stop-shop module
dedicated to obtaining a license in the field of renewable electricity generation, as a separate
part of the electronic single point of contact for the industrial license. Thus, economic
operators will be able to apply for the necessary licences, authorisations, agreements and
approvals in a single procedure, which would reduce the licensing time and, implicitly,
network connection, would make the process transparent and uniform.
From the point of view of the legislation, it was found that the main barriers relate to the lack
of legislative levers to prevent the development of potentially speculative investments and
the lack of a correlated legislative package to prevent the long duration of the connection
process. Currently, there are situations where some economic operators/investors request
and obtain TAC, but do not intend to complete the projects and put them into service, with a
view to entering the market, but rather selling the projects to other investors at the “ready to
build” stage. This behaviour leads to the blocking of available capacity to connect investments
in renewable projects during the validity of the TACs obtained, causing major difficulties for
investors requesting grid connection to effectively enter the market.
NERA developed a regulation in 2021 that facilitates the transfer of useful information to
potential investors, but further measures should be adopted to deter speculative investments
to prevent or mitigate bottlenecks, such as introducing an enforcement guarantee or
sanctioning prolonged inaction by investors.
Among the recommendations made to the Ministry of Energy and the central authorities are
mentioned the importance of developing and implementing strategies in this field according
to the objectives assumed by Romania in the field of renewable energy and the need to
identify new possibilities to facilitate sources of funding for network development works.
Regarding the difficulties of financing works to strengthen the electricity grids, in order to be
able to take over the electricity produced by new units that should be installed, it is
recommended to use support schemes for the production of electricity from renewable
sources, given that charging around EUR 100,000/MW for these works has made the
development of large-scale projects prohibitive.
In addition, the connection procedures at the level of network operators need to be
harmonised and they should publish guidelines with the necessary details and documents.
Distribution system operators should also keep up-to-date existing information on the
connection to the grid of electricity generators, and must organise continuous training
programmes for network operators’ staff, so that RES projects are no longer delayed by the
lack of experience of the employees.
“The study on the identification of possible legislative barriers to market entry in view of the
connection of new renewable electricity generation capacities to the National Electroenergy
System” complements the study recently launched by the Competition Council on the possible
restriction of market access for renewable energy producers as part of the
authorisation/reporting process by public authorities.
The final version of the study is available on the institution’s website.

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