Wind Energy Investments Remain Theoretical Plans For Romania

“For the time being we received no requests to authorize the setting up wind farms in Romania even though many companies expressed their intention to invest in wind turbines,” said Nicolae Opris, vice-president of the National Regulatory Authority in the Energy Field, or ANRE.

Several wind turbines already function in the country but at low capacity and their yearly contribution in the sector is an insignificant one.

The licenses and authorizations for the production, transportation, distribution and supply with electric power are granted by ANRE.

Even though companies seen extremely interested in the field, at least in theory, in practice things are not exactly the same.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, investors announced their intention to build wind turbines that would exceed 10,000 MW in Romania, but for the time being these are only theoretical projects.

The costs to install a MW of energy in wind units varies between EUR1 million and EUR1.4 million.

Among the companies that announced their intention to invest in wind farms in Romania are Italy’s Enel, Eviva Nalbant, branch of Portugal’s Martifer, state state-owned power grid Electrica, CEZ group from the Czech Republic, liquid gas distributor Butan Gaz, Germany’s E.ON, Spain’s Detea as well as other companies.

Romanian areas with a high wind energy potential are the Romanian Black Sea seashore, the Muntenia and Dobrogea plateaus and the high mountainous areas.

A February report of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, read that by 2010 Romania will be among the countries with the highest percentage of energy produced from renewable sources.