Romania to subsidize households with up to EUR 610 million for photovoltaics

Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă said the procedure for households to install solar power panels needs to be simplified further. The government will earmark as much as EUR 610 million for a public call that is set to be issued next month.

Romania is set to subsidize households with EUR 610 million for installing solar power panels or four times more than last year. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă said the Casa Verde Fotovoltaice program would cover 150,000 homes. In 2022, approvals were issued for 39,000 out of over 43,000 existing applications.

Minister of Environment, Water and Forests Tánczos Barna revealed that the government is analyzing the possibility of granting funds for storage capacities as well within the scheme including from European funds. The call is expected to be launched in March, he added.

Municipal authorities to be in charge of approving grants

Discussions are underway with local authorities to make the procedure easier, Barna reiterated. He also pointed to the limits in the capacity of Romanian companies in the segment as well as the constraints regarding the ability of the distribution network to add new distributed renewable energy producers. The minister stressed there are issues with available quantities of solar panels that can be imported.

Small producers and individuals installing photovoltaic systems at home will ease the increase in electricity bills, according to Barna. The Casa Verde Fotovoltaice program has covered 30% to 40% of costs so far for its beneficiaries.

Administrative barriers, technical glitches still hamper deployment of photovoltaics in households

In the initial round, in 2019, over 27,000 applications were submitted, of which just over 15,000 got the green light. However, some households have waited for up to three years to install photovoltaic systems on their roofs. The Romanian media reported that the demand for solar panels has gone up sevenfold in 2022.

Earlier, Minister Barna Tánczos said local authorities would be approving the grants to residents. The program for solar panels on rooftops or next to family homes was also about to get new software for applications, in his words.

There were 23,785 prosumers connected to the distribution grid in Romania at the end of August or 75% more than at the beginning of the year.