Study: Investors' access to the electricity production market from renewable sources is difficult

The participants in the process of connecting to the electricity grid encounter a series of legislative, bureaucratic barriers associated with financing barriers, but also some generated by the insufficient development of the electric transmission and distribution networks, is the conclusion of a study carried out by the Competition Council and the National Regulatory Authority in Energy (ANRE)."We are particularly interested in the process of connecting the new production capacities from renewable sources to the transmission/distribution network, considering that several financing schemes have been launched, through the National Recovery and Resilience Program, but also through other national and community investment programs. In this context, the priority is the optimization of national authorization/approval procedures, with the aim of reducing project implementation times. At the same time, it is very important to distinguish between strictly necessary regulations, with essential role in ensuring the quality of services, and those that are not strictly necessary, even potentially harmful to the development of the market," said Bogdan Chiritoiu, the president of the Competition Council.The study shows that the most frequent problems encountered by companies when entering the market of electricity production from renewable sources refer to the administrative authorization process (bureaucracy, non-transparent processes, the long duration of issuing the technical approval for connection (ATR), interpretable and insufficient legislative framework). At the same time, other problems related to the insufficient investments in the development of electricity networks, the lack of experience in working with renewable projects of the personnel involved in various stages of the authorization process, the development of speculative investments were identified.In this context, the competition authority and the energy regulatory authority formulated a series of proposals and recommendations to eliminate or mitigate the barriers identified in the study."The implementation of a "one-stop-shop" module dedicated to obtaining the license in the field of electricity production from renewable sources, as a distinct part within the electronic single point of contact for the industrial license, could have multiple benefits from the point of view of reducing time for granting licenses and, implicitly, for connecting to the network, from the point of view of transparency, standardization and uniformity of the process," the press release reads.