The cumulative installed power of photovoltaic panels owned by prosumers at the end of October was 1,300 MW. The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) shows that, by the end of the year, it will reach 1,500 MW.
For comparison, the two nuclear reactors of the Cernavodă plant have a total of 1,400 MW. At the end of last year, there were 48,812 prosumers in Romania, with an installed capacity of 478 MW.
At the end of October 2023, their number increased to 101,605, and the installed power to 1,298 MW.
“It is clear that the phenomenon is evolving,” said George Niculescu, the president of ANRE, in a press conference. “We estimate that by the end of the year we will have 1.5 GW of the data we have. Here we are going to exceed the power of the two reactors from Cernavodă“.
ANRE expects this trend to continue next year, when 1,000 MW of photovoltaic panels will be installed. “At the end of next year, we expect 2,500 MW capacity owned by prosumers to be in operation,” Gabriel Andronache, the institution’s vice president, said.
A law granting more benefits to prosumers has been recently sent back to Parliament by President Klaus Iohannis, with ANRE claiming that one of the reasons is that this law conflicts with a European directive.
More precisely, the law voted in Parliament provides that prosumers with capacities up to 900 kV do not pay for imbalances caused in the network. “At the meeting of the Commission of Industries when this amendment to the law was approved, no representative of ANRE participated. There is a European directive that allows exemptions to the payment of imbalances only for those up to 400 kV. Obviously, the position of the authority is to respect the legislative framework”, explained the president of ANRE.
According to him, the new Casa Verde photovoltaic program will include funds for prosumers to purchase energy storage batteries, which will reduce the problem of grid imbalances.