This report is one of a series on the market outlook for the renewable energy sector in Turkey and central and eastern Europe, covering Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Bulgaria, and—the focus of this issue—Romania. The report also includes corporate news through end-2013 for firms including Enel Green Power, Energreen Investment Europe, Samsung, and China’s Lightway Solar.

Romania benefits from a relatively strong starting point in renewable energy production: one-third of its electricity is already generated in large hydropower plants. The vast majority of rural households use firewood, therefore renewable resources, to heat. The Black Sea region offers large wind power potential—enough alone to meet the renewable electricity quotas set under the NREAP, the action plan drafted by the government in line with the EU green energy directives. The use of more renewable sources and a possible rise in natural gas production in the Black Sea could turn the country into a net electricity exporter around 2020, unless the manufacturing sector develops more strongly than expected in the meanwhile.

Romania’s economy ministry has drafted and published online in late August 2013 a bill to adjust the support given to power generators that use renewable energy resources in order to avoid their overcompensation. Nonetheless, even after the adjustment the investors see the support as encouraging.

Key Points:

• European national governments, including those in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Bulgaria, and Romania, are at a critical point in regard to their renewable energy policies. They have reached the moment when they need to radically reshuffle their support schemas for renewable energy.

• Turkey’s market more recently turned very attractive to investors (even without a national action plan) due to official commitments for renewable energy and particularly with a sharply growing electricity market.

• In corporate news, Enel Green Power, Enel’s renewable energy arm, has commissioned its fourth photovoltaic plant in Romania. Luxembourg-based Energreen Investment Europe is investing in two photovoltaic parks in Brasov county.

• South Korea's Samsung has become the largest investor in Romania’s photovoltaic sector after completing a solar farm in Romania’s southern Giurgiu county. Chinese company Lightway Solar has also decided to develop a 50MW photovoltaic park in Romania.

• The annual amount of energy generated from renewable resources in the six European countries in this report will expand by the equivalent of 12.4 million tons of oil by 2020 compared to 2010—meaning that it should increase by 75%.