Greenvolt Group, a leading international player in the renewable energy sector with expertise in diverse technologies, makes its debut in the Romanian market’s distributed generation segment via the Greenvolt Next service. Additionally, Greenvolt will participate in the following Romanian CfD (Contract for Difference) auction with a wind project boasting a capacity of up to 300 MW.
Romania is the Group’s 10th European country in terms of the GreenVolt Next distributed generation operations. These involve an energy resource generating power at or near the point of consumption.
Through a €27M investment, GreenVolt Next plans to add 110 MW of renewable energy in Romania over the next three years. This also means creating 100 jobs in the country.
We spoke to Joao Manso Neto, CEO of Greenvolt Group, for the details of the company’s Romanian expansion
carvibz: What are the main figures for Greenvolt’s operations on the Romanian market?
Joao Manso Neto: In terms of figures regarding solar energy, for small projects [the Greenvolt website classifies these as being under 10 MW/project], we will install at least 110 MW over the next 3 years.
As for big projects [classified as larger than 10 MW], we have 45 MW operating [after acquiring a photovoltaic park in Giurgiu for €83M from Samsung in 2022], plus 24 MW in construction.
When it comes to advanced projects in wind power, we have up to 300 MW and we intend to participate in the next CfD auction in Romania.
carvibz: How do you find the Romanian legislation in terms of your operations?
Joao Manso Neto: The legislation enables us to work. It’s good for a starting point, but if you want to be more ambitious, there are legislative aspects that need to be adjusted. The country’s wait of renewal [the waiting period for the renewal of an operation-critical permit, license, or contract] is not very big, in terms of installed capacity.
For big projects, the key matter is obtaining the permits-it takes years we already have a rather advanced pipeline. On the other hand, those small projects are much quicker-we’re looking at months. And this is why we move into markets like Romania, with massive potential in terms of both big and small projects.
Greenvolt’s global operations
In addition to producing energy from sustainable biomass forest residues and urban wood waste in Portugal and the UK with Greenvolt Biomass, through Greenvolt Power the Greenvolt Group is acting as a developer of Utility Scale Wind, Solar photovoltaic, and Energy Storage projects, operating in many markets in Europe, North America and more recently in Asia, with a global pipeline of 8.4 GW.
In 2023, the segment reached 91.5 MWp of capacity installed and accumulated a backlog of 216.3 MWp by year-end, with 66.7 MWp secured for installations via Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
It’s also worth mentioning that Greenvolt won the Polish capacity auction, having been awarded 1.2GW of capacity for six Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) projects.