Romania’s Decision Makers | Editorial Series by The Diplomat-Bucharest
Romania’s renewable energy market is entering a new phase—one that goes beyond its long-standing reputation as a cost-competitive destination. Increasingly, the focus is shifting toward value creation, driven by strong natural resources, improving project sophistication, and growing investor confidence.
In an interview for The Diplomat-Bucharest, Lăcrămioara Diaconu-Pințea, Vice President and Country Manager of OX2 Romania, shares her perspective on the market’s evolution and the company’s growing role locally. As OX2 marks five years of activity in Romania, it has built a solid portfolio of 1.3 GW across wind, solar, and battery storage projects, with ambitions to approach 2 GW by the end of 2026.
From developments like the Green Breeze wind project in Galați County—expected to be operational in the first half of 2026—to a growing pipeline of large-scale investments, OX2’s trajectory reflects the broader transformation of the Romanian energy landscape. Around 400 MW are currently preparing for Final Investment Decision in 2026, including a flagship project of approximately 300 MW, which would represent the largest single investment decision at group level this year.
As discussions evolve around long-term value creation, bankable structures such as PPAs and CfDs, and the importance of regulatory predictability, this interview explores how Romania is positioning itself as a strategic renewable energy market—and how OX2 is helping shape its future.
From your perspective, how attractive is Romania today compared to other CEE markets when you allocate capital and investments?
Romania is one of the most interesting energy markets in Europe right now because value is created at the intersection of potential and delivery.
Several factors have come together to create this favorable country profile. One of these is the upcoming accession to the OECD, which is a significant event that lowers the country’s risk, cuts financing costs and makes more projects viable and attractive. Additionally, growing attention from corporate buyers, particularly hyperscalers, is accelerating the maturation of the local PPA market. The volume and sophistication that these buyers bring forces developers to deliver bankable structures, hybrid offtakes and long-term certainty.
OX2 has recognized this potential and is expanding its local presence. Five years after entering the market, our portfolio is growing organically through both greenfield projects and acquisitions, and we expect to reach up to 2 GW by the end of the year, with a major part of this capacity expected to be fully operational between now until 2030.
How do you evaluate Romania in terms of cost competitiveness versus productivity and value creation?
Romania is often still described as a cost-competitive market, but I think that framing is becoming outdated. The real conversation now is about value creation.
Development and construction costs as well as project timelines remain attractive compared to Western Europe, and Romania benefits from strong wind and solar resources. However, what increasingly differentiates this market is its ability to generate long-term value through properly structured projects such as bankable PPAs, hybrid solutions with storage, and disciplined execution.
What are the top three factors that most influence your investment decisions in Romania?
For long-term infrastructure investors, predictability is critical. Regulatory stability is probably the most important factor, and we are not expecting perfection, but clarity and consistency over time.
Grid access and infrastructure planning come next. Without visibility on connection capacity and reinforcement timelines, even the strongest projects face uncertainty. It is not an easy-going process to get connected to the grid. The time to get there and the quality of the connection matter a lot. The challenge is that we have 80 GW projects in the pipeline with grid connection permits, even if we know that only 10-15% of them will be built. The slow clearing of non-viable projects from that queue creates a genuine systemic risk: it locks up scarce grid capacity, delays real investments, and distorts planning for Transelectrica. We are watching ANRE’s latest proposal on this with real interest – the outcome will say a lot about Romania’s institutional capacity to act decisively.
And finally, the offtake market. The maturation of the PPA market, particularly driven by sophisticated corporate buyers, has been a very positive development. When credible counterparties enter the market with long-term commitments, it strengthens the entire investment ecosystem.
OX2 Romania secured in 2024 a PPA with Apple for 70% of the production of our 99 MW Green Breeze wind project in Galati County, making it the largest PPA contract in the country, at a time when PPAs were just at the beginning in Romania.
Apple launched an RfP (request for proposal) in 11 countries, including Romania. We were able to secure it thanks to OX2 traction in Europe, where we signed the first PPAs in 2013, when the market was infant. This created visibility, trust and relationships with major players like Apple, Google, Microsoft as well as other utility companies and manufacturers.
How could public authorities better support large investors and strategic industries?
The most powerful support mechanism is speed and transparency.
Specific permitting bottlenecks remain one of the biggest friction points across Europe, not only in Romania. Digitalization of processes, clear deadlines, and coordinated institutional responses would significantly improve investment predictability.
Equally important, industrial policy and energy infrastructure need to be planned together, not sequentially. If Romania wants to attract hyperscalers, advanced manufacturing, and energy-intensive reindustrialisation, the grid expansion and flexible generation capacity must be there in advance – not as a reaction to demand that already went elsewhere.
Also very important is the upcoming OECD accession, which will help lower the perceived country risk, which directly impacts financing costs.
What should Romania change in education or workforce policies to better match business realities?
The energy transition is creating a new profile of workforce demand. Although engineers remain essential, there are needed project finance specialists, grid digitalization experts, battery and storage technicians, and experienced project managers.
Closer collaboration between universities, technical schools, and private investors would accelerate this alignment. Dual education programs linked to large infrastructure projects could be particularly effective.
With increasingly attractive career opportunities shaping up locally, Romania also has now the opportunity to attract back highly skilled professionals working abroad. The scale of investment expected for the next decade justifies that ambition.
How confident are you about Romania’s economic outlook for 2026–2030?
I am cautiously optimistic. Romania has strong structural drivers: EU funding, accelerating decarbonization investments, increasing corporate demand for green electricity, and the expected improvement in sovereign risk perception following OECD accession.
The key variable will be macroeconomic discipline and regulatory continuity. If fiscal consolidation is managed responsibly and policy remains stable, the 2026 -2030 period could become one of the most dynamic infrastructure investment cycles Romania has seen. Of course we are not immune at the shocks coming from outside the country, and we should be strengthening our energy resilience, for short and medium time.
Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities during this period?
Utility-scale renewables will continue to grow, but increasingly in hybrid formats that combine wind, solar, and storage. Storage is no longer optional – it is becoming fundamental to system stability as renewable penetration increases.
At the same time, the corporate PPA market is advancing. Large cloud services providers and industrial consumers are reshaping demand patterns and raising the sophistication of contractual structures. That evolution creates both discipline and opportunity for developers capable of delivering solid, bankable solutions.
We have seen the tendency from big cloud platforms to shape the market and the products, moving from classic PPAs to new models. Google for example needs carbon-free energy by 2030 so that’s the product we are after and we must find the combination: wind, solar, BESS to match their demand. The shift is sudden; it has popped up in the last year.
The tech companies – Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, AWS – are currently the biggest buyers of green energy. The big driver are the data centers they are creating across Europe, the so-called FLAP-D markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin).
Data center energy consumption in Europe has seen an unprecedented surge driven by AI and cloud computing, with demand projected to rise from roughly 96 TWh in 2024 to 236 TWh by 2035, a nearly 150% increase in ten years, according to market data. This growth is projected to boost data centers’ share of total European electricity demand from roughly 3% in 2024 to 5.7% by 2035.
I would also stress that OX2 itself is transitioning from being primarily a renewable energy project developer and seller to also becoming a hybrid IPP, meaning it will both develop projects and operate them, selling the electricity they produce. Traditionally OX2 developed renewable assets and sold them to other investors. Under the hybrid model it will retain and operate certain assets, adding a long-term revenue stream from power generation itself. Owning and operating energy assets delivers recurring, predictable income. OX2’s acquisition by EQT – a large private equity investor – has given the company financial flexibility to broaden its business model.
What investment priorities will define your company’s roadmap in Romania over the next 3–5 years?
This year OX2 marks five years in Romania, and our portfolio stands at 1.3 GW, mainly wind projects, but also solar and BESS ones. By the end of 2026 we will get close to 2 GW footprint in the country. Green Breeze (99 MW, Galati county) is energizing in the first half of 2026 — by the time this interview publishes it may already be producing electricity. Our second wind project of approximately 96 MW is expected to reach commercial operation in the first half of 2027. Around 400 MW are preparing for Final Investment Decision in 2026, including one project of approximately 300 MW that would represent the largest single investment decision at OX2 group level this year — a signal of how seriously we are treating Romania as a strategic market. We have PPAs and CfDs so we are well grounded for our projects to become real MWh in a couple of years.
Our priority remains execution. The market is moving beyond announcements; it is differentiating between pipelines and delivered assets. That means securing solid PPAs, structuring construction financing, managing EPC contracts effectively, and ensuring grid integration.
We are also expanding our focus on hybrid solutions and storage, because flexibility will define the next phase of renewable growth.
What should Romania’s economic strategy prioritize to stay competitive in the next decade?
Romania’s economic strategy for the next decade has one non-negotiable anchor: energy competitiveness. And energy competitiveness increasingly means energy predictability, not just cheap electricity.
There’s a structural tension worth naming. A significant share of industrial consumers in Romania still procure electricity primarily through day-ahead and short-term contracts — rational behavior when prices are low, but exposed when they spike. Almost 50% of the consumption in Romania reflects this pattern. We saw this painfully in 2021–2022. Long-term offtake agreements — properly structured PPAs, CfDs — are not just a tool for developers to secure revenue; they are a mechanism for consumers to lock in cost predictability and for the system as a whole to achieve price stability. Markets where long-term contracts represent a larger share of total traded volume are demonstrably less volatile.
Romania should prioritize building the conditions for this: a mature PPA market with standardized bankable structures, grid infrastructure capable of supporting hybrid generation, and regulatory frameworks that reward long-term commitment from both sides of the transaction. The corporate demand is already there — hyperscalers, advanced manufacturers, large industrials are all signaling appetite for structured, long-term green offtake. The question is whether Romania’s market infrastructure can meet that demand at scale.
OX2’s experience illustrates this directly. The Apple PPA for Green Breeze wasn’t just a commercial milestone — it demonstrated that Romania can host the kind of sophisticated, long-duration contract structures that serious capital requires. That’s the template for how Romania becomes a strategic destination, not just a low-cost location.
Which three reforms would have the greatest positive impact on business confidence?
Building on what I described earlier, I would prioritize three concrete actions.
First, a genuinely functional one-stop-shop for energy infrastructure permitting — with clear institutional responsibility, legally enforceable timelines, and real consequences for delays. The concept exists on paper; the implementation remains inadequate.
Second, an accelerated and transparent process for cleaning up the grid connection pipeline. This means establishing clear viability criteria, applying them consistently, and removing projects that have no realistic path to construction. The current situation penalizes serious investors and creates artificial scarcity in a system that should be enabling investment, not rationing it.
Third, regulatory and fiscal predictability over 10-year horizons for energy infrastructure. Project financing is structured over 15 to 20 years. When regulatory parameters shift with each electoral cycle, bankability suffers — and with it, the cost and availability of capital. Romania doesn’t need perfect policy; it needs consistent policy. That distinction matters enormously to institutional investors.
What industries could realistically become Romania’s strategic champions by 2030?
Energy is certainly one of them — and increasingly, it functions as the foundation that makes other sectors viable rather than as a standalone industry.
The most consequential dynamic we are observing directly is the convergence of digital infrastructure expansion and green energy demand. The major cloud platforms – Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta – are now the largest buyers of renewable electricity in Europe, driven by the scale of data center buildout across the continent. Data center energy consumption in Europe is projected to nearly triple by 2035, rising from roughly 96 TWh in 2024 to 236 TWh – moving from approximately 3% to nearly 6% of total European electricity demand. These companies are no longer buying certificates; they are procuring carbon-free energy on an hourly matching basis, which requires hybrid generation – wind, solar, and storage working in combination.
Romania has a credible case to become a significant location in this infrastructure build. The wind and solar resources are there. The land and construction costs remain competitive. And the proximity to underserved Central and Eastern European markets gives Romania a geographic advantage as Western hubs reach saturation. What’s needed is the energy infrastructure to match that potential.
Beyond energy and digital infrastructure, I would highlight agri-food processing powered by clean electricity — Romania has exceptional agricultural resources that remain significantly undervalued — and, on a longer horizon, green hydrogen value chains, where Romania’s renewables capacity and access to regional demand corridors position it well. These are not abstract ambitions; they are sectors where the underlying assets already exist and where the missing ingredient is execution speed and policy alignment.
If you were advising policymakers tomorrow, what one message would you deliver?
Romania has the capital, the resources, and the demand momentum. The defining factor is execution speed. If projects can move from development to construction efficiently, Romania will not simply participate in the energy transition, but it will position itself as a regional leader.Top of FormBottom of Form