Conergy builds second Romanian solar power plant
Conergy is currently building a further 2 megawatt solar power plant in the Romanian region of Slobozia. It was only in January this year that the PV solution and service provider had announced its entry into the market in the Eastern European country with a 2.2 megawatt solar park. The company is now following that with a further power plant for a group of local private investors. Conergy is acting as general contractor of this project and is thus responsible for the entire planning and engineering of the park as well as for the construction and the supply of the components. The Conergy plant will not have to rely on any feed-in tariff, but will be profitable thanks to "green certificates" and so-called "Power Purchase Agreements" (PPAs). Under these agreements, the energy provider purchases the solar electricity at a fixed price.
On an area of around 4 Hectares equivalent to approximately 3 football pitches, over 8,000 "made in Germany" Conergy modules installed on Conergy SolarLinea mounting systems will be producing more than 2,700 megawatt hours of clean solar electricity each year, sufficient to supply 770 households. At the same time, the Conergy power plant will prevent the emission of 1,400 tonnes of damaging CO2, corresponding to the annual emissions of around 700 cars.
"The Romanian solar market has great growth potential for the future, and the government has set ambitious targets for the expansion of renewable energies," said Conergy Board Member Alexander Gorski. "Currently, Romania is covering around two thirds of its electricity demand by power generated in the country itself. Large-scale solar power plants will be playing an increasingly important role in helping to enable the country to also satisfy the rapidly rising demand for electricity in the future. We intend to expand our business in this segment further in the years to come. And thanks to our extensive expertise in the planning and implementation of large-scale projects, we are offering domestic and foreign investors optimum quality and the greatest possible investment security "“ among others through the TÜV certification of our power plants."
Contrary to other European countries, Romania is not relying on a state-backed feed-in tariff but on a quota model. The state has issued a directive that requires energy providers and energy-intensive businesses to obtain a specific proportion of their electricity from renewable sources, the figure currently being 14%. For this purpose, they need a certain number of so-called "green certificates". If they don't achieve the required quota, the energy providers must purchase such certificates at a price of €110 each to cover the shortfall. And the quota is due to rise by 1% year on year, which means that by 2019 the proportion of generated electricity that has to be "green" will be as much as 19.5%.
Power plants with a total capacity of up to 10 megawatt currently receive six certificates for each renewable megawatt hour generated over the subsequent 15 years. As of 2014 the numbers are planned to be reduced to three certificates according to an announcement of the national energy regulation authority (Autoriatea Nationala de Reglementare in domeniul Energiei, ANRE). The owners of the 2 megawatt Conergy power plant will be receiving 16,200 green certificates each year for the annual production of around 2,700 megawatt hours and thus a total of 243,000 over 15 years. When the certificates are traded, the market prices per certificate are fixed until 2025 in a range between € 27 and € 55. Certificates that could not be sold during the course of any one year will be bought up by the national energy regulation authority ANRE at the fixed minimum price. The power plant operators thus sell their electricity and in addition receive income from trading the green certificates, ranging in the case of the 2 MW Conergy plant from € 6.6m to € 13.4m over the period of 15 years.
