Romania’s 127 MW / 254 MWh Scornicesti standalone battery energy storage system has secured up to EUR 44 million in financing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The non-recourse project financing is backed by risk support from InvestEU and sets a financing precedent for merchant storage in the region.
The financing structure separates the project’s cash flows from the sponsors’ wider balance sheets. As a result, the battery itself must demonstrate that it can service its debt, without relying on the sponsors’ other assets or businesses.
Merchant revenue and market competition
Scornicesti is among Romania’s earliest large standalone battery projects built with substantial merchant exposure instead of a conventional long-term power purchase agreement. Assessing the financing case requires hourly revenue modelling, enforceable market-access arrangements, conservative battery-degradation assumptions and downside scenarios. Forecasting average spreads alone is not enough to establish whether the project can meet its debt-service requirements.
Romania’s operational storage fleet stood at 1,162 MW and 2,312 MWh on 1 October 2026, up from 494 MW and about 914 MWh at the start of the year. That rapid growth has taken the market from early scarcity towards greater competition among batteries for arbitrage and balancing revenues. It has also increased the importance of testing project revenues under downside conditions.
Romania’s Modernisation Fund launched a EUR 150 million call for standalone batteries, targeting at least 2,174 MWh of additional capacity. Support was capped at EUR 69,000/MWh and EUR 15 million per company. Grants can lower storage projects’ capital intensity, but do not eliminate operating risk as competition among batteries grows.
Project finance precedent
The Scornicesti deal shows that merchant storage can support non-recourse debt when its revenue model is granular, risks are allocated contractually and the downside case still provides adequate debt-service coverage. The precedent puts the focus on how much merchant risk banks will accept, and at what leverage, as Romania’s storage market continues to expand.
