Romania: Energy market regulation: providing value, creating synergies
The energy regulatory framework of Romania has evolved over the past 20 years from a highly centralised model to an essentially customer-centric system, with extremely liquid power markets, gas exchanges in formation and complex financial products and analyses that start to resemble those of the financial world.
In such a situation, with such complex regulations, it can be quite a challenge for any company nursing ambitions to enter Romania’s energy market. To be successful, their efforts obviously depend largely on how they handle the contents of these regulations. However, it is the actual context of the regulations (societal and economic factors, political, professional and personal ambitions, group conflicts and collaboration, business decisions, public policies, mentalities, attitudes and more) which is the critical factor, something which only a body of highly specialised and knowledgeable consultants can deal with.
The Romanian electricity industry has seen gigantic changes in recent years. This provides openings for interesting investments.
Back in 1999, as a member of the first regulatory team of RERA (the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority), Cristina Cremenescu of Ecovis, Bucharest, was closely involved in the implementation of the unbundling process of the Romanian energy market. “Unbundling” is a technical term meaning the separation of activities, processes and business of power companies into producers, transport and distribution, trading and supply. There were many risks involved in the execution of this complicated, unique and critical project, which required expertise and experience to produce a safe and satisfactory outcome. The reinvention of the energy sector in Romania also had implications for the market economy of the European Union as a whole, since it had also to be fully aligned with EU objectives, with EU regulations replacing the rigid legal texts inherited from the former Communist regime. With Cremenescu, who was a member the team responsible for the unbundling of Romania’s electricity industry, ECOVIS CIURTIN & Associates is in a position to provide its clients with the requisite expertise in the country’s regulatory system and legal work in relation to the public and central authorities.
How can Ecovis serve?
During the last 20 years the Romanian energy sector has undergone the transformation from a centralised model to an open and competitive market. Many industries have been restructured (e.g. heavy industries), new business lines have appeared, some of them promoted by generous support schemes (renewables), and the energy market is still transforming.
Establishing efficient solutions for the development of new businesses, connecting them to utilities and integrating them into energy markets can pose a dauntingchallenge under these circumstances. Ecovis offers innovative solutions to provide the right technical approach, thanks to its profound knowledge of the regulations applying to the energy industry in Romania.
Author
Cristina Cremenescu, Ph.D., senior energy consultant, heat, electricity and gas market regulation, ECOVIS CIURTIN & Associates – Regulatory, Bucharest, Romania
Email: c.cremenescu@ciurtin.ro