Brussels oks amendments to Romanian green certificate support system

The European Commission said on Monday it has approved amendments introduced by Romania to its green certificate support system for renewables, first approved by the Commission in July 2011.

The Commission clarified that the support granted in the form of tradable green certificates involves state aid and found the modifications to the system, which tighten the criteria as compared to the 2011 scheme, to be in line with EU state aid rules, it said in a statement.

The scheme is designed to encourage investments in renewable energy and thus assist Romania in reaching by 2020 the mandatory national renewable energy target set under EU legislation.

Green certificates are granted to electricity producers in Romania for each MWh generated from wind, hydro, biomass, landfill gas, sewage plant treatment gas or solar. If the energy is produced in high efficiency co-generation plants, a bonus is applied.

The certificates issued by the state to the producers can be sold to energy suppliers on a specific market, independent of the electricity market. The power suppliers have the obligation to acquire a certain number of green certificates per year. If they fail to do so they must pay a penalty, which is used to support small individual producers of electricity from renewable sources.

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