Romania will launch in 2024 tender for 2.000 MW solar and wind projects which will be financed through a pending EU-funded contract-for-difference (CfD) support scheme, according to Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja.

The CfD support scheme amounts to 3 billion euros and will ultimately cover 5 GW worth of projects.

The negotiations for the contract for difference (CfD) arrangements, by which Romania wants to extend EUR 3bn grants to investors in solar and wind facilities, will start from EUR 91 per MWh for solar energy and EUR 93 per MWh for wind energy, in the context in which the price of spot energy is on a downward slope, Ziarul Financiar announced.

Burduja assured that his ministry and the Competition Council would make sure that there was enough competition to bring the prices down.

The “execution prices” set under the competitive procedure are de facto guaranteed to investors, who, in exchange for this guarantee, give up the potential profits generated by market prices above the execution price.

Romania will finance the CfD scheme from the Modernization Fund. The past schemes for green energy were financed directly by the end-consumers, which resulted in their eventual diminishing.

“Romania is the first country at the European level that will use the money from the Modernization Fund to finance the CfD scheme”, Burduja added.

According to him, there will be two auction rounds, the first this year for 2,000 MW, equally divided between solar and wind, and the second next year, for 3,000 MW, the capacity being this time equally divided between the two technologies.