ANRE: The number of green certificates granted for renewable energy producers to be reduced

Authorities will lower the number of green certificates granted to renewable energy producers from the photovoltaic sector, micro hydropower plants and wind energy, areas overcompensated by the current support scheme, in order to limit the effects of granting subsidies in the electricity invoice paid by the end-consumer, Vice President of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) Emil Calota stated. “There are three technologies for the production of renewable energy. It’s about the photovoltaic technology, the technology for micro hydropower stations producing less than 10MW and for wind energy. Thus, except for energy produced based on biomass and biogas, areas in which investments haven’t reached a high level, there is no relevant data yet, the other three are overcompensated”, Emil Calota stated for Agerpres. ANRE official stated that the measure of reducing the number of green certificates would be applied after approval by ANRE of the Market Monitoring Report for 2012. The support granted to producers is incurred to the end-consumer, by paying a higher electricity bill. “On Friday I will submit for ANRE information and approval the Market Monitoring Report for 2012. The document will show, based on technical analyses, which technologies are overcompensated. There will reduce the number of certificates. The report will be public as of April 1^st 2013”, Emil Calota added. ANRE Vice President explained the mechanism under which the authorities can limit the effects of granting green certificates in the invoice paid by consumers. “The mechanism considered for reducing the effects of the support scheme for renewable energy in the final electricity price, thus in the bill of the end-consumer, in normal economic conditions, which we have available under the provisions of the support scheme agreed with the European Commission, is related to overcompensation. We will monitor for all the renewable energy operators the effect on costs, so as the scheme for the allocation of green certificates does not show overcompensation. The philosophy is that investments are expensive in this field, are difficult to recover, and investors are supported through these mechanisms. When it is found that a too high number of green certificates was allocated, it can be reduced. We will know early next week the exact situation”, Emil Calota mentioned.