The Ministry of Energy of Romania will provide just over €103 million in financial support for battery energy storage system (BESS) deployments in the country.
Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu signed an order approving the state aid scheme for investments in battery energy storage systems on Monday, 28 November, announced via his Facebook page.
The total budget of the programme is €103.48 million (US$107 million) and will receive €79 million from Romania’s portion of the EU-wide Recovery and Resilience Plan, the bloc’s programme to mitigate the negative economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The remainder will come from national funds.
The aid will be provided in the form of reimbursement for expenses incurred for the construction and purchase of new battery energy storage capacity or related infrastructure. The aid cannot exceed €167,000 per MWh, which means the budget will go towards at least 619MWh of deployments.
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The deadline for project proposals to be submitted for eligibility is December 28, 2022.
In a document on its website, the Ministry said it is aiming for deployments of at least 480MWh of BESS by 2025.
Romania has been relatively quiet for energy storage project announcements, even when compared to other neighbouring Balkans and southeast European countries.
Portuguese utility EDP’s renewables arm EDP Renováveis’ (EDPR) inaugurated the country’s first large-scale battery storage system, co-located with a wind far, back in 2018.
More recently in spring this year, construction began on a 7MW unit in the commune of Moara Vlăsiei, according to local outlet Profit.ro. That project is being launched by owned in equal parts by three Austrian-headquartered or controlled firms: investment fund Core Value Capital, Gerdan Real Estate SRL and renewable deveoper Green Source GmbH.
Romania currently has a target of 30.7% renewable generation in its electricity mix by 2030 but it has made promises to up the figure.
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