In a highly applied and honest intervention at the 11th Energy Strategy Summit, the flagship event of Energynomics, Oana Mogoi, Head Utilities & Natural Resources, at ING Bank Romania, presented the challenges and real conditions for financing battery storage projects in Romania.
His message, far from being pessimistic, was one of clarity and responsibility: there is liquidity and appetite for financing, but projects need to be rigorously prepared and solidly structured. Romania has the chance to attract this financing if developers, regulators and banks work together to build a more predictable market and support mechanisms adapted to the local context.
ING takes a unified approach to financing the global energy transition: the organisation divides the energy sector into two sub-sectors, “atoms” – which includes power generation and storage solutions – and “molecules”, i.e. oil, gas and alternative fuels such as green hydrogen, generically called “New Energy Technologies”. “We have €1bn globally earmarked to support projects that promote such technologies,” Oana Mogoi said.
The financing of battery storage solutions is already widespread in mature markets such as the US, Australia, Benelux or the UK, where ING has been actively financing such projects and where it can use non-recourse project finance structures with market risk, i.e. without having long-term revenue guarantee solutions.
When it comes to Romania, things get more complicated. Oana Mogoi was blunt. In Romania, “we still have quite a lot of fossil fuel which has an impact on the price of electricity, keeping it high because of the specific cost per MWh.” She emphasised the steep increase in regional volatility, with electricity price ranges doubling between 2023 and 2024 in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
From the bank’s perspective, it is precisely volatility and regulatory risk that make it difficult to structure the financing of battery electricity storage projects when they are not associated with a stand-alone battery park modelled on mature markets. Oana Mogoi explained that in the absence of market risk mitigation instruments – such as capacity markets, PPAs, tolling contracts or CfDs – financing requires large own contributions and high safety margins.
“First and foremost, when we structure any project finance we look at the cash flow of the project. If we have such a mechanism – tolling agreement, PPA, CfD – it means that we have contracted production with a fixed price and then the buffer needed to cover the annual debt service is about 20-25%, for the covered part of the production and it can go up to 80% for the uncovered part.
Oana Mogoi also drew attention to the complexity of structuring these projects. She insisted on the need for specialised due diligence, especially on the market and system services side: “From our experience in battery financing, we can say that the system services market is really complex and poorly understood.”
DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF OANA MOGOI
When it comes to optimising revenues in battery projects, ING prefers to work with strong partners with a solid balance sheet and experience in energy supply and trading.
“I don’t think we can talk about a template. In project finance there are no templates. We will always look at many parameters,” Mogoi concluded, explaining that each project has to be analysed according to many parameters, such as the experience of the investor and/or builder, technology providers, guarantees offered, market risk and revenue structure.
2025 Energy Strategy Summit was organised by Energynomics, with the support of our partners: AJ Brand, Elektra Renewable Support, ABB, Adrem Asset Management, Alive Capital, BCR, DEKRA, Distribuție Energie Electrică Romania, E-Infra, Eaton Electric, Electrica Furnizare, EnergoBit, Enery, Enevo Group, Enexus, European Investment Bank, Evryo, Exim Banca Romaneasca, Delgaz Grid, Genesis Biopartner, Huawei, ING Bank, Jantzen Renewables, Keno Energy, Leader Team, LONGi, Nano Energies, Prime Batteries Technology, Procesio, Procredit Bank, Relians, Renomia, Romgaz, Schneider Electric, script.ai, Sermatec, smartPulse, Solar Today, SolaX, Think Blu Solution, Voltika, Wiren, YEO, AIployees, Aqua Carpatica, Alexandrion, Carbon Tool, Imsol.