On Monday, starting at 1:00 p.m., for a four-hour period, the price of electricity was zero on the PZUM, but from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., it exceeded 100 euros, which demonstrates the importance of installing storage capacity, especially given that costs have decreased by about 20% compared to the level of 13 years ago, said Gabriel Andronache, vice president of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), at a specialized event.

“I looked this morning – actually I do it every day, every morning I receive the data for the PZU for that day – and I found (…) that today, starting at 1:00 p.m., for a four-hour period, the price of electricity is zero on the PZU, but I also found that starting at 7:00 p.m., until 11:00 p.m., the price jumps by 100 euros, and then we sit and think: is it profitable for those who install solar production capacities – indeed, there are also costs, but with low yields – to end up injecting with zero or is it necessary to do delayed production through these storage capacities? Prosumers have realized – and I have talked to them – they have realized that it is more important and more beneficial to install storage capacity. We know very well that storage capacity, the cost of storage capacity has decreased by about 20% compared to what it was 13 years ago. years,” Andronache said, quoted by Agerpres.

The ANRE official admitted that the price of energy matters a lot in a country’s competitiveness, because that’s the only way to attract investments for its development.

“Indeed, the price of energy matters a lot in a country’s competitiveness, along with what it means for raw materials, taxation, the workforce, and with all this we must look at whether and how we can make prices lower and lower, so that we can attract investments in the economic area, so that Romania can develop. If we look carefully at what is happening and what has happened recently, I will not go into the numbers too much as I usually do, but I can say that (…) if we look at the number of ATRs (Technical Connection Approvals – n. r.), then we look at the connection applications, then we look at the approvals, establishment authorizations and so on and how much is being implemented, we will find that we are somewhere below 4% of what we have ATRs issued, of capacity, which is not a good thing”, he warned.

According to the authority’s vice president, as of December 2025 there were 297,000 prosumers, and 66,000 of them had installed storage capacity.

“A good thing, because in the production area we always have to take prosumers into account, here I will come with some data. In December we found that we reached the threshold of 297,000 prosumers and one thing that is very, very gratifying is the fact that we have 66,000 prosumers who have installed storage capacities. And if I look at what happened in the last semester of last year, we see a very large increase in the number of those who are prosumers and are installing storage capacities. So, in December, there were another 7,000 prosumers who installed production capacities, from 287,000 to 294,000, so 7,000 consumption places, of prosumers, but in return 10,000 prosumers installed storage. So that we can look and see what it means in capacity, there are about 3,400 prosumers megawatts installed in photovoltaic panels,” he claimed.