Italian Company To Develop 200 MW Solar In Romania

Romania is set to have 200 MW of solar PV capacity coming up under partnership between Italian renewable energy supplier Alerion Clean Power and Romanian PV company Project RO. The 2 have joined hands to co-develop this capacity in the form of several PV plants.

In a brief statement issued, Alerion said the first of these projects with a combined capacity of close to 33 MW are scheduled to come online and start producing solar power within H1/2021.

Under its 2021-2023 Business Plan approved by the company's board earlier this month, Alerion aims to become one of the main operators of renewable energy sources in Europe with more than 3 TWh of clean power produced at the end of the selected period. From 835 MW installed renewable energy capacity at the end of 2020, it will target 1.544 GW by the end of 2023.

Over these 3 years, it will focus on expanding its asset portfolio as well as geographical footprint eyeing Italy, Spain, Romania and Bulgaria, with solar central to its plans.

In a related news, the Romanian state energy fund SAPE has reportedly agreed to acquire the operational 5 MW Darvari Solar Park in Prahova county taking it over from Foto Solar, according to a report on business news portal Profit.ro. The state plans to expand this project to 10 MW or higher. SAPE owns stakes in local Romanian subsidiaries of Enel that bring it dividends and other revenues. Takeover of the project from Foto Solar will complete on April 29, 2021.

According to the country's National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) for 2021-2030, Romania aims to expand its solar power installed capacity by 3.7 GW by 2030, growing from 1.4 GW in all installed till the end of 2020 as per the EU Market Outlook For Solar Power 2020-2024 released by the SolarPower Europe (SPE) in December 2020 (see SolarPower Europe Says EU Added 18.2 GW Solar In 2020).

It would take the country's cumulative solar PV capacity till the end of 2030 to 5.1 GW, which SPE believes would not do justice to the potential this market offers. What it does praise is Romanian government's prosumer support schemes which should again be more ambitious (see Romania: RON 252mn For Green PV Home Scheme).