ROMANIA’S ELECTRICITY · ONE REAL DAY, TWO EXPERIMENTS
The megawatt cemeteryWhy energy projects get stuck in Romania
In April 2026, Romania had more than 86 GW of energy projects with grid-connection permits. Supplying a home depends on what gets built, where, and when it produces electricity. Replay a real day and explore what batteries could change.
Historical data
1 May 2025: from midday to evening demand
1 May 2025 · Romanian time (UTC+3)
Midday: the battery can take some reported solar generation.
It was a public holiday. Reported average demand was 4,217 MW at 13:00–14:00, rising to 6,447 MW at 21:00–22:00. Reported solar output fell from 1,067 MW to zero between those hours. Replay the day, then add an imaginary battery.
At 15:00–16:00, the price was −500.87 RON/MWh. At 21:00–22:00, it was 816.38 RON/MWh. A negative wholesale price does not automatically mean a negative bill at home.
Wholesale day-ahead price in RON/MWh. Your supplier’s charges, network fees and taxes are excluded. The imaginary battery does not change the historical price.
Battery experiment
How much midday energy could reach the evening?
Power (MW) limits how quickly a battery can charge or deliver; capacity (MWh) is the energy it can store. The hypothetical battery charges between 10:00 and 17:00 from part of the reported solar output and delivers after 18:00, subject to its power and stored energy. The dashed curve shows what other sources and exchanges would still need to supply.
Assumptions: empty battery at the start; 90% round-trip efficiency; nominal duration means capacity divided by power, with losses reducing energy delivered; no simultaneous charging and discharging. Charging uses already reported generation. This experiment does not measure curtailed energy or predict prices, imports or local grid constraints.
The day, hour by hour
MW are hourly means; MWh measure energy. Positive exchanges mean net imports.
| Interval start time | Demand (MW) | Reported solar (MW) | Reported generation (MW) | Net physical exchange (MW) | Historical OPCOM price (RON/MWh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 5,524 | 0 | 3,682 | +1,593 | 495.84 |
| 01:00 | 5,268 | 0 | 3,571 | +1,492 | 495.89 |
| 02:00 | 5,137 | 0 | 3,511 | +1,415 | 467.26 |
| 03:00 | 5,176 | 0 | 3,502 | +1,437 | 459.52 |
| 04:00 | 5,107 | 0 | 3,470 | +1,452 | 460.93 |
| 05:00 | 5,069 | 0 | 3,476 | +1,416 | 461.07 |
| 06:00 | 5,046 | 13 | 3,549 | +1,318 | 426.85 |
| 07:00 | 5,161 | 166 | 3,919 | +1,059 | 407.98 |
| 08:00 | 5,147 | 536 | 4,437 | +528 | 360.58 |
| 09:00 | 4,907 | 880 | 4,932 | −210 | 278.41 |
| 10:00 | 4,628 | 1,050 | 4,781 | −345 | 0.00 |
| 11:00 | 4,343 | 1,005 | 4,474 | −320 | -14.93 |
| 12:00 | 4,146 | 1,039 | 4,477 | −515 | -199.59 |
| 13:00 | 4,217 | 1,067 | 4,248 | −209 | -394.20 |
| 14:00 | 4,279 | 958 | 4,019 | +94 | -500.67 |
| 15:00 | 4,373 | 844 | 4,166 | +30 | -500.87 |
| 16:00 | 4,705 | 694 | 4,279 | +243 | -248.82 |
| 17:00 | 5,139 | 478 | 4,462 | +483 | -25.73 |
| 18:00 | 5,507 | 308 | 4,570 | +749 | 187.23 |
| 19:00 | 5,836 | 78 | 4,311 | +1,334 | 485.10 |
| 20:00 | 6,240 | 5 | 4,789 | +1,261 | 640.72 |
| 21:00 | 6,447 | 0 | 4,911 | +1,345 | 816.38 |
| 22:00 | 6,020 | 0 | 4,826 | +1,005 | 602.51 |
| 23:00 | 5,516 | 0 | 4,253 | +1,076 | 498.07 |
ANRE · APRIL 2026
Over 86 GW of projects, at different stages
At the start of April 2026, Romania’s energy regulator, ANRE, counted 1,500 projects above 1 MW with valid connection permits, totalling more than 86 GW, according to pv magazine. Of these, 628 also had connection contracts and building permits; 208 also had ANRE establishment authorisations.
A technical connection permit, known as an ATR, sets the technical conditions for connecting a project. A project without a building permit may still be in preparation; its paperwork does not prove abandonment or speculation. These counts describe project stages, without showing how many megawatts will be built.
CONNECTION-RULE EXPERIMENT
What changes when projects leave the queue?
Try a hypothetical rule that removes projects without building permits. We do not know their share of the permitted capacity. You can change that assumption explicitly: a share by project count does not establish a share by megawatts.
Under this assumption, 0.0 GW leave and 86.0 GW remain from the 86 GW calculation baseline.
Removing a reservation does not build a power plant or add generation to the historical day above. The 86 GW baseline is rounded; the source says “over 86 GW”. These scenarios do not estimate the effect of ANRE’s rules.
Where the electricity needs to travel
Projects also need a grid that can take their output. This schematic shows 31 substations at 400 and 220 kV, positioned at their towns, and approximate corridors. Select a station to identify it.
The map does not show station queues or available capacity: we have no verified local data for these. Equal dots identify stations, without ranking congestion.
Northern links remain in preparation
Transelectrica, Romania’s transmission operator, described preparatory stages in its updates of 20–21 October 2026. Highlighting a route does not simulate commissioning it. Reșița–Pančevo has been in commercial operation since January 2025.
What we know and what we assume
The real day
Demand, generation and physical-flow series come from Energy-Charts, a Fraunhofer ISE service processing ENTSO-E data. We retained the 96 complete 15-minute intervals for 1 May 2025 in Europe/Bucharest and calculated hourly means. Net flow sums exchanges with neighbouring countries, with positive values for imports. Reported generation may differ from demand minus physical flows because the series have different definitions and adjustments.
The imaginary battery
Power is 0, 250, 500 or 1,000 MW; capacity in MWh is power multiplied by two or four hours. Efficiency is split equally between charging and discharging: √0.90 each way. Each hour, charging is limited by power, reported solar and remaining space. Discharging is limited by power, stored energy and demand remaining after solar. Local transmission constraints and other generators’ responses are ignored. Energy charged minus energy delivered equals losses plus energy left in storage.
The project queue
The total and project counts come from pv magazine’s report of ANRE’s April 2026 figures; we have not verified that census in its original release. The model uses 86,000 MW and an initial assumed 42% share of capacity in projects with building permits, close to 628/1,500 by project count. Capacity removed = 86,000 × (1 − permitted share) × removal fraction. We do not allocate this total to substations.
The price and your bill
Prices are transcribed from OPCOM’s official reports for delivery on 30 April and 1 May 2025 in RON/MWh. Report interval 1 starts at 01:00 in Romania. We use interval 24 from the 30 April report for 00:00 on 1 May, followed by intervals 1–23 from the 1 May report. Historical prices remain unchanged under every battery setting. We calculate neither bill savings nor alternative market prices.
Sources and data
- Energy-Charts / Fraunhofer ISE — API, definitions and CC BY 4.0
- OPCOM — hourly market results, delivery 1 May 2025
- OPCOM — preceding market day, midnight boundary
- OPCOM — market interval and Romanian time convention
- pv magazine, 28 May 2026 — ANRE connection-queue census
- Transelectrica, 21 October 2026 — northern projects
- Transelectrica, 20 October 2026 — Suceava–Bălți
- Transelectrica — Reșița–Pančevo in commercial operation, January 2025