Romania must speed up investment in storage, and the state must give better support to investors in renewables, said Cristian Bușoi, State Secretary at the Ministry of Energy, at the Code of Good Practice for Renewable Energy in Romania launch conference, organised on 1 October by RWEA and RPIA in partnership with Energynomics. His message comes ahead of a winter that the official expects to bring high electricity prices.
“This summer’s crisis, when we had to operate without the Cernavodă plant, and we are still operating without the Cernavodă plant, showed that we need to accelerate investment, that we must put a greater focus, in the immediate period ahead, on investment in battery storage, but not only in batteries,” Bușoi said.
Expensive winter, faster electrification
The State Secretary described price pressure coming from several directions. “We are in an extremely difficult geopolitical context. We face a winter and a spring of 2027 that look set to bring high electricity prices, but also problems with fossil fuels,” he said, pointing to the supply of oil and petroleum products and to the price of natural gas.
Energy systems are not yet fully electrified, Bușoi acknowledged, but the direction has been set at European level. “The European Union has decided to accelerate electrification and to further support investment in renewable electricity generation, which will enable us to reach the 2050 climate targets, increase our energy security,” he said.
For Romania, the targets set in national planning documents and in the energy strategy are ambitious, the official said. The European directives and regulations already transposed, or still to be transposed into national legislation, push in the same direction.
Permitting is moving faster, grids remain the test
Investors still run into bureaucratic barriers, at legislative level and in their dealings with the Ministry of Energy, including in funding programmes, Bușoi acknowledged. Progress across institutions is uneven. “ANRE has taken important steps and made important progress in speeding up permitting procedures, but there are still things to improve in the relationship with Transelectrica and with the distribution operators,” he said.
Even so, Romania’s progress in attracting investment in renewable energy has been noted at European and international level, the State Secretary said, referring to a recently published article on the subject.
“The Code of Good Practice, now in its third edition, is a strategic document that helps a great deal in steering things in the right direction. The Ministry of Energy will continue to support the renewables sector,” Bușoi said.
From net importer to net exporter
The official linked the pace of investment to the way the state organises its support. “All the investment effort you are making must be better supported and better organised by the Government, the Ministry of Energy, other line ministries, the regulators and all the institutions that can contribute to your success,” he told the investors in the room.
The stakes, as Bușoi framed them, go beyond the energy sector. “Your success means turning a net importing country into a net exporter of electricity, a promoter of energy security for this region of the European Union, better and more stable prices for industrial consumers, because that is where the big problem lies, and for household consumers,” he said.
For industry, where the State Secretary placed the greatest price pressure, the test lies in how quickly new renewable and storage capacity actually reaches the grid. There, the relationship with Transelectrica and the distribution operators, which Bușoi identified as an area for improvement, remains the condition.