Romania will receive more than €480 million ($514.4 million) of EU money for solar projects at mining waste sites.
The latest round of Modernisation Fund awards included backing for eight mining-related solar sites in the country.
The town of Rovinari, which hosts a 1,320 MW coal-fired power plant that is being upgraded with a further 500 MW of generation capacity, will receive a total of almost €285 million for four photovoltaic sites on mining waste piles and an ash and slag deposit.
Similar solar sites will be funded at Pinoasa, Bohorelu-Jilt, Isalnita, and Turceni, in a round of awards announced by the European Commission this week.
The aim
The Modernisation Fund aims to help coal-dependent EU member states Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia with the energy transition.
The pot is funded by revenue from the sale of carbon emission permits under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Some 2% of revenue generated by permits sold in those member states backs the Modernisation Fund in most cases, although Croatia, Czechia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia hand over more of the receipts.
Romania also secured €10.5 million of the total €2.4 billion disbursed in the latest funding round for smart grid upgrades to the transmission system for a nuclear plant and renewables sites in Dobrogea, PV writes.
