CIBR Blog

Solar power in Romania had in 2007 an installed capacity of 0.81 MWp. Romania is located in an area with a good solar potential of 210 sunny days per year and with an annual solar energy flux between 1,000 kWh/ m2/year and 1,300 kWh/ m2/year. From this total amount around 600 to 800 kWh/ m2/year is technical feasible. The most important solar regions of Romania are the Black Sea coast, Dobrogea and Oltenia with an average of 1,600 kWh/ m2/year.

Romania was a major player in the solar power industry, installing in the 1970's and 80's around 800,000 square metres (8,600,000 sq ft) of low quality solar collectors that placed the country third worldwide in the total surface of PV cells. One of the most important solar project was the installing of a 30 kW solar panel on the roof of the Politehnica University of Bucharest that is capacble of producing 60 MWh of electricity per year.

Rominterm, a Romanian company, will install until 2010 a total of 600 solar panels in Mangalia, Constanţa County that will make the city self sufficient in terms of heated water during the summer months and provide around 70% of heated water in the winter months and another 1,150 solar panels used for the generation of electricity spread over an area of 1,400 square metres (15,000 sq ft). Another Romanian city, Alba Iulia, installed a total of 1,700 PV cells on several public buildings that produce 257 kWh of electricity per year. Other cities include Giurgiu with 174 solar panels and 391.5 kW installed capacity and Saturn, Romania with 50 panels and 112 kW installed capacity.

The Covaci Solar Park will be Romania's largest solar power plant at completion having a total of 480,000 solar pannels with a combined capacity of 35 megawatts and will be located in Timiş County. Another important site is the Gura Ialomiţei Solar Park in Ialomiţa County which will have a capacity of 10 megawatts. Other solar parks include the Satu Mare Solar Park located in Satu Mare County which will have a capacity of 5 to 8 megawatts and the Sfântu Gheorghe Solar Park located in Covasna County that will have a capacity of 2.4 megawatts.