Collaboration between institutions and companies is needed to harness renewable energy

In the second edition of the Solar Energy Bucharest Summit, the former Vice President of the National Energy Regulatory Authority, Zoltan Nagy-Bege, highlighted ANRE's commitment to supporting the sustainable development of renewable energies.

Nagy-Bege explained that Romania's potential in the field of renewable energy production can only be exploited by attracting new investments in the field. For investors to develop new production capacity, we need a stable and predictable legislative framework and cooperation between institutions and investors.

"The first thing I would like to convey is Romania's great potential in the field of renewables, in photovoltaics in particular. The potential is significant, perhaps even above the European average, and we must strive to exploit it, to attract investments, to build new production capacities and to convert this potential into economic growth, into a pillar of economic growth for Romania. I believe that renewable energy can be a core area of the Romanian economy, but this, of course, requires multi-level involvement." said Zoltan Nagy-Bege.

The Romanian authorities need to work together to develop a stable and predictable legislative framework for renewable energy in order to develop a favourable environment for the energy sector.

"At the legislative level, the Parliament, the Government, the ANRE must get involved in order to provide this business environment, which is of interest to the renewable sector, with a stable and predictable framework, both through primary and secondary legislation. Then there is a need for the involvement of grid operators, both transmission and distribution operators. Involvement is needed at local government level. All these institutions and companies must work together, otherwise this huge potential will remain partially exploited. I am convinced that some legislative changes, perhaps even to primary legislation, will already be made this year. There are already open discussions in Parliament with the specialist committees, together with the network operators, who already see the danger of not adapting to this new situation. There are some changes that can be made and ANRE is already working on them, at secondary legislation level, but there are some that need to be regulated at primary legislation level, in Parliament or at Government level", explained the ANRE Director.

One opportunity for network operators is to access €2 billion in non-reimbursable funding. The stakes are particularly high for the energy industry.

"We need to adapt and find a solution for them, to speed up the connection of these small production capacities. Of course, we also need to talk about the necessary investments in networks. At the moment, it is a huge opportunity for network operators to have two billion euros at their disposal, with the sources of funding coming after a period of crisis, of high energy prices, which have affected the work of these operators. It would be a pity not to use these sources, and I hope they will take these opportunities to invest in networks from non-reimbursable funds very seriously, but we see that their concern is also about the next regulatory period, which should start on 1 January 2024, for another 4 years. This year ends in Q4, and now we're halfway through the year. During this period the principles of the new regulatory methodology should have been discussed between the network operators and the authority. I don't think it is a surprise to anyone that we are in a certain delay. The stakes are very high, because in addition to these investments that need to be made in the networks, investments that will be recognised on the basis of these methodologies and principles. We should recognise that, especially at the level of distributors, their role needs to change. They will also have to take on the role of local system operators", Zoltan said.

At the end of his speech, the former vice-president of the National Energy Regulatory Authority pointed out that renewable energy production must develop in line with storage solutions. Nagy-Bege expressed his belief that there will soon be a law requiring wind and photovoltaic developers to have storage capacity.