The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) cannot limit, through a regulation, the right of any natural or legal person to produce electricity, said the former vice-president of ANRE, Zoltan Nagy-Bege, currently director of the Directorate for Energy Market, Ciga Energy.
He was asked what his opinion is regarding the statements of ANRE representatives regarding the need to impose a certain threshold for the installation of photovoltaic panels by prosumers, given that the quantity produced by them in most cases exceeds their own consumption, putting pressure on the distribution network.
“I have seen the statements of the president and vice-president of ANRE, it is very good that they are concerned about these problems. The problems are real. Instead, the way the problem was presented is only half the truth, because the situation of unjustified oversizing of the installations exists. But, at the same time, we can ask ourselves the question: That distributor who for a place of consumption had an ATR for a consumption power of 10 kilowatts, at the moment when the respective future prosumer requested an ATR for 60 kilowatts, for example, so it did oversizing by six times compared to the consumption power, why did it issue that ATR? Why didn’t it limit the ATR so that it wouldn’t cause problems in the networks? I also give you the answer, why didn’t it limit. Because he does not have the right to limit – and if you ask me, not even ANRE does not have the right to limit,” Zoltan Nagy-Bege emphasized, according to Agerpres.
In his opinion, ANRE representatives can come up with some regulations, such as the simplified connection procedure for those who have capacities lower than 400 kilowatts.
“ANRE, through a regulation, I don’t think it can limit the right of any natural or legal person to produce electricity. As there is a simplified connection procedure for those who have capacities less than 400 kilowatts, ANRE can come with some regulations, for example the connection procedure, where these limits are set according to the consumption of the customer, for example, or the consumption power of the customer. But let’s say that someone is not allowed to produce x amount of electricity, I think it violates the fundamental right of these natural or legal persons,” added Zoltan Nagy-Bege.
He emphasized that nowhere in Europe, no network operator has the right to refuse the connection to the network of a consumer or a producer.
“We have to go a little further and look from the general perspective of electricity production. Nowhere in Europe, no grid operator has the right to refuse connection to the grid either to a consumer or to a producer. If someone asks to connect a production capacities on the network, the network operator, whether it is a carrier, must give each distributor an ATR, a connection notice and, obviously, if that capacity is so large that the network in its current state cannot withstand, it must they say: look at the conditions under which you connect – and probably, in many cases, the reinforcement rates will be so high that the respective investment is no longer worth making,” explained the cited source.
According to him, investments must be made in the networks in the first place, but not in all cases investments are the solution. He referred to several flexibility solutions, such as the production of controllable energy, fossil, hydro or biogas, storage in batteries.
“According to ANRE data, we are approaching or perhaps at this time we have already exceeded 1,000 megawatts installed in the prosumer installations. It is a capacity that can no longer be neglected – and it is a capacity that, in certain areas of the network, is already causing some problems. Obviously the problem is not with this 1,000 megawatt capacity. There are just certain points in the network where maybe the consumption is lower, maybe this consumer density is above average or it’s higher than normal. That’s where some problems can occur , some congestions for which the low-voltage distribution network is very likely not ready to manage them at the moment. There are solutions, I think they are very obvious, but they are not identical in all cases,” Zoltan Nagy added.
Last week, the president of ANRE, George Niculescu, referring to oversizing cases, stated that a threshold should be imposed on the installation of photovoltaic panels by prosumers, depending on their consumption needs.