Photovoltaic parks are growing in Romania, but solar energy production is increasingly being deliberately limited due to negative prices.
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The installed capacity of photovoltaic parks continues to grow in Romania, new projects are under construction, but their electricity production is increasingly limited.
The total installed capacity of photovoltaic parks is now over 2,400 MW in Romania, and it is growing. Therefore, we would expect that, at least in the months of the year with maximum solar radiation, solar energy production would also be at its maximum during the sunny hours.
However, this does not happen all the time, especially because of negative prices during periods of low consumption.
The increase in photovoltaic capacity is indeed felt in energy production, under normal conditions. Thus, in June, we had new records for instantaneous production of photovoltaic parks. For example, on Thursday, June 5, after lunch (1:20 p.m.), photovoltaics delivered electricity to the grid at a power of 1,870 MW. More than the Cernavoda nuclear power plant ever delivered, or even more than all the coal-fired power plants delivered at their peak production last winter – just for comparison.
Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t happen like this every time it’s sunny. And, especially, it doesn’t happen like this on weekends. Here is the production curve of the photovoltaic parks on Sunday, June 8, when it was Pentecost (photovoltaics are in red):
As you can see, the growth of photovoltaics stops suddenly around 10 am, at 1,000 MW, and doesn’t grow all day, given that we had a fairly sunny day.
The reason: in the electricity spot market (PZU), prices were negative in the 10-16 hour intervals, with a minimum of minus 163 lei/MWh at around 3 pm. As such, in order not to end up selling at a negative price in the spot market – that is, to be in a position to pay for their energy to be bought, photovoltaic producers deliberately stop their parks.
And during those hours, the system is generally on import, with energy coming from the western market, generally from Germany, through the coupling mechanism.
The situation on Sunday is also valid on other weekend days, when prices become negative in the middle of the day. Last Sunday, for example, it was the same, photovoltaic production stopped at 1,000 MW, given that we had eight hours of negative prices.
It has not been calculated how much of the photovoltaic energy production is practically lost due to the self-limitation of producers as a result of negative prices, but tens of GWh, if not hundreds, are saved over a year.
However, these limitations mean that producers’ investments are no longer as profitable as they seemed when they made the decision to build the parks.
And the number of negative price hours is increasing. According to annual statistics, in 2024, over 4,800 hours with zero and negative prices were recorded on European markets, double that of 2023.
The phenomenon of negative electricity prices also appeared on the day-ahead market (DAM) in Romania in the summer of 2023.
This year, negative hourly spot prices have been occurring since the first part of March, much earlier than usual: the DAM hourly price for electricity with delivery on Sunday, March 9, was zero in the 12 and 13 hour intervals, and minus 3.41 lei/MWh at 14:00.
In April, we also recorded a premiere: the first negative prices in the history of the Romanian market to appear on working days.
