Electrica May Cover Green Certificate Requirements With Proprietary Renewable Energy Production

Alina Toma Vereha

A KPMG feasibility study on the future development of Electrica S.A. recommends the Romanian-based electricity company to start producing energy from renewable sources in order to cover their requirements for green certificates. For the time being, Electrica"s organizational units that supply electricity to third parties need to meet an annual quota of green certificates and have no option than to buy such certificates from the free market.

Vladimir Barbu, Electrica"s Head of Business Development, yesterday told a seminar organized by the Romanian Energy Institute that the KPGM study contained the recommendation to invest in producing 150 MW worth of wind energy, 200 MW worth of biomass-based energy and 25 MW worth of hydro energy.

Upon addressing the topic of green energy integration in Electrica"s production systems, Barbu said: "The production of renewable energy is necessary for our company irrespective of which integrated structure it may be part of. Buying the mandatory quota of green certificates from the market is very expensive. It"s about 55 EUR per certificate. Because Electrica requires more certificates than are available on the market, we have to pay penalties of 70 EUR per certificate. These sums are defined by laws and other regulations. The shortage of green certificates does not affect only Electrica, but all suppliers."

Electrica needs 824 green certificates for 2009 and will need 1,261 certificates in 2012. The mandatory quota is defined by the energy market regulator ANRE as a function of the quantity of energy delivered by each company. In Electrica"s case, deliveries are planned to increase from some 13,000 GWh in2009 to approximately 15,000 GWh in 2012. The company is currently making several studies in view of potentially starting to produce wind, biomass and hydro energy.