Financing Solar Photovoltaics in Romania — Not a Picnic

As I have mentioned, I get requests for my help in finding investors for renewable energy projects from all over the world.  I haven’t been keeping track, but I’m sure I’ve spoken or written back and forth with people in at least 100 countries.  Sometimes I wind up on Google to find out exactly where they are.

Obviously, each country has its own story to tell with respect to “investability.” Some are total political and social disasters, like Pakistan, where others, while they may be more secure on the crime and violence front, are also unstable, and represent overt threats to nationalize investors’ assets.

Most American don’t know too much about Eastern Europe – and I’m not claiming that I have any profound understanding there either.  In fact, when I came upon a couple of apparently quite solid utility-scale solar PV projects in Romania the other day, I called upon 2GreenEnergy’s associate Agostinho Garcia, whose headquarters is in Lisbon, to help sort this out.  He explained: “Romania does not have a FIT (feed-in tariff).  They do, however, have RECs (Renewable Energy Credits), but they got a cut on the RECs given for solar recently.  If you want to know more, here’s a comprehensive article.  Bottom line: it will not be easy to finance projects in Romania, but it’s possible; I need to know more about the specifics.”

I’ll keep him – and you — posted.