The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is receiving more and more applications for financing renewable energy projects, and 2024 is certainly the year when investments in this sector will resume strongly in Romania, said Mihaela Mihăilescu, Deputy Director of the bank’s Bucharest office.

“More and more renewable energy projects are maturing enough to become bankable. There has been a huge increase in the number of applications for EBRD funding. There are many investors who feel they have missed the boat and are keen to get into the market quickly by buying up existing projects. I’m not saying it’s a bad strategy necessarily, it’s just that there’s a lot of swirling in the market and it’s very difficult, I think, to distinguish between feasible and non-feasible projects,” she said, at the conference “2024: A defining year for the renewable energy sector in Romania”.

Some of the funding applications received by the bank are already in advanced stages of approval. To be able to finance them directly, the EBRD needs those projects to be of a certain size because, being larger projects, their impact on the economy will be greater.

CHECK The numbers in the “Monitor of the Romanian Photovoltaic Projects”

“We have a development mandate that we intend to implement in Romania, where an important component is sustainable infrastructure, under which we finance all our renewable energy projects. The year 2024, at least, is the first year in a long time that we can start financing solar and photovoltaic projects. It’s a year when renewable investments will actually start,” the EBRD representative added.

The conference “2024: A defining year for the renewable energy sector in Romania” was organized by Energynomics with the support of our partners: ADC, Alive Capital, CRC Energy, Elektra Renewable Support, EnergoPower, Ensys, Extro, Horváth, ING Bank, LONGi Solar, Monsson Operation, Nofar Energy, OX2 România, Photomate, PNE Romania, Polytrade Global, REI Grup, Renomia, Sph3ra Management Solutions, Transelectrica, WALDEVAR Energy, Wiren Romania. On this occasion, Energynomics launched its first report under the initiative “Monitor of the Romanian Photovoltaic Projects”.