The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) has launched a public consultation on a draft order under which storage facilities added to existing electricity generation capacities would be exempt from the requirement to provide the financial guarantee of €30,000/MW.
The measure primarily targets hybrid projects in which battery energy storage systems (BESS) are co-located with photovoltaic plants or other power generation facilities. In such cases, investors would be required to provide the financial guarantee only for the generation capacity, without including the capacity of the added storage system in the calculation.
According to ANRE, this amendment aims to encourage investment in energy storage solutions and facilitate their integration into power generation projects. Battery systems allow energy to be stored locally during periods of high production and delivered to the grid at a later time, depending on generation and consumption levels.
The integration of energy storage systems can also contribute to limiting peaks in power injected into the grid, to the more efficient use of available capacity and to increasing the flexibility of the energy system.
Eliminating the guarantee requirement for the storage component could reduce upfront costs for developers of hybrid projects and support the expansion of BESS capacity in Romania, at a time when the growing share of renewable energy generation is creating an increasing need for grid flexibility and balancing.
The draft order also provides for other situations in which the financial guarantee would no longer be required, including certain projects benefiting from Contracts for Difference (CfD) and repowering works that do not involve an increase in installed electrical capacity.
