Repsol Renewables CEO João Costeira warned that auctions will not be at all times the proper reply in response to Romania’s plan to make renewables builders pay for grid entry, because the Japanese European nation nears passing a long-awaited offshore wind legislation.
Talking by way of video to a panel on the WindEurope 2024 summit in Bilbao, George Niculescu, president of the Romanian Power Regulatory Authority, knowledgeable about Romania’s plan to make renewables builders bid to connect with its electrical grid in an public sale.
Cash generated can be used to construct up the grid, serving to make house to carry extra renewables on-line additional down the highway.
The public sale will pit wind and photo voltaic in opposition to one another, Niculescu stated, whereas there will probably be no cap on the quantity builders can bid.
He predicted that subsequent 12 months there might be a “excessive worth” for connecting tasks and it could be “economically clever” to attend a couple of years for the value of connection to drop.
“I’m undecided that auctions are at all times the proper reply,” Repsol’s Costeira stated on the panel.
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Creating costly new mechanisms builders must compete in “will translate into a better worth of vitality, inevitably,” he stated, evaluating it to costly bidding processes for seabed rights which can be abhorred by the wind trade.
The sector should, he stated, “keep away from as a lot as doable the creation of a secondary marketplace for interconnections.”
Different choices, together with making builders pay “substantial safety” for his or her connection spot to verify they aren’t taken up by phantom tasks that clog up grid queues, may have “much less negative effects.”
In the case of interconnections, Costeira joked that this tends to trigger a “battle between the vitality minister and the finance minister. And the finance minister usually wins.”
Romania hopes to go offshore wind legislation inside months
Romania is in the meantime nearing passing an offshore wind legislation that can assist kick-start its ambitions to have 3GW of offshore wind capability within the water by 2032.
The nation’s Senate accepted the draft laws in February and Niculescu stated that “hopefully in a few months” it is going to be adopted by parliament as properly, and “we’ll lastly have an offshore wind vitality legislation.”
Romania is planning to implement a contracts for distinction (CfD) scheme to help offshore builders, which he stated have already proven “lots of curiosity” in investing.
The “infrastructure is there” to help such tasks, he continued, with the Black Sea metropolis of Constanța boasting a big port that may help producers’ wants.
Romania will give attention to fixed-bottom offshore wind generators to begin, he stated. Later, “we’ll see about floating.”
There will probably be alternatives in Bulgaria, he stated. And after the battle finishes between Russia and Ukraine, Romania will even present its technical experience and expertise to assist the latter nation develop its offshore potential.
These future wind farms will probably be related to a “freeway of inexperienced vitality” that Niculescu stated will join offshore wind energy generated within the Caspian Sea all the way in which to nations in Western Europe.
The governments of Romania, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Hungary signed an settlement in December to construct a subsea hyperlink. The hyperlink will start in upcoming COP29 host Azerbaijan and journey all the way in which to Hungary, bringing inexperienced vitality to the EU and serving to minimize reliance on Russian fuel.
