Romania pushes for clarity on wind power 

Romania currently hosts the largest on-shore wind park in Europe. Wind energy is booming in the economically weak country, yet investors remain worried about a lack of clear regulations.

Strong winds and strong state support: Romania is on its way to becoming wind energy’s paradise.

Back in 2008, the Bucharest government agreed on a law to promote renewable energies, which it published in the Romanian government gazette.

However, the European Commission has to approve these plans since they count as state aid. It was not until this summer that the document was submitted to Brussels for signature.

Missing: legal framework

These delays are a huge problem for potential investors who want to support wind parks. “We are missing a stable legal framework,” says Dana Duica, chairwoman of the Romanian Wind Energy Association.

“Many companies have already made very important investment decisions since the law was published in 2008. But now, years later, it has still not been applied.”

From 20 to 1,000

Despite these starting problems, wind energy has experienced an enormous boom in Romania, one of the economically weakest EU countries.

Compared to 2009 when the installed wind energy capacity was as low as 20 megawatt, it is going to be 1,000 megawatt by the end of 2011, according to the Romanian Wind Energy Association.

More than half of the installed wind energy capacity is located in the Tomis Team Dobrogea Wind Farm close to the Romanian Black Sea coast. It is roughly the equivalent of the installed capacity of a nuclear power plant.

This on-shore wind park is currently the largest in Europe and was built by the Czech enterprise CEZ.

There are already more than 10 new wind parks in Dobrogea, the windy coastal region in southeast Romania.

The most important investors are the Portuguese Energias de Portugal Group and Enel Green Power, which is the green power subsidiary of the Italian electricity giant Enel.

European investments

Many Western European companies are hoping to place profitable investments in the Romanian wind energy sector.

Austria’s largest energy group Verbund has already started building a wind park close to the Romanian Black Sea coast and the Spanish Iberdrola wants to build the largest on-shore wind park of the world in this region – with a capacity of 1,500 megawatt.

A long-term price change

otentially, wind energy could provide electricity for one quarter of the eight million households in Romania.

Due to the new wind systems the Romanian energy price went up by 2.3 percent this year, says Dana Duica.

“In the beginning electricity will be a little more expensive but after a while prices will stabilize and, after that, even decrease again,” she says.

The problem with the birds

There is, however, another price to pay when it comes to clean wind energy, says Romanian environmentalist Tamas Papp.

In his opinion some of the wind parks endanger biodiversity.

“We are trying to protect the environment and fight global warming by building wind turbines – which is a good thing in itself.

But it is important to place them only in regions where there are no important flight paths for migratory birds,” says Papp.

According to him, this is why the Dobrogea region close to the Donau Delta is a very unfavorable location, because it lies beneath one of the most important flight paths for birds on their way to Africa.

Birds of prey and storks are especially endangered by the wind park, says Tamas Papp. The environmentalist suggests shutting down the wind turbines for a couple of weeks each year, so the birds can pass them safely.