The energy sector in Romania

Even though Romania traditionally had the third lowest energy import dependency rate in the European Union, due to natural gas and oil reserves and an oversized power generation sector, since 2019 the country has shifted from electricity exporter to net importer.  

Romania’s electricity mix is one of the most balanced in the EU, with coal, hydropower, fossil gas, nuclear energy and wind power having comparable shares of capacity and power generation. In 2025, almost 500 MW of energy storage capacity became available for the first time, improving grid stability and enabling higher renewables uptake. 

With the exception of wind and solar, almost all units are fairly old. Thus, although there is an official installed capacity of 18.4 GW , the average power delivered to the system is around seven GW, with many experts believing that demand above 11 GW is hard to cover relying exclusively on domestic resources. Already in 2020 it became obvious that around 8 GW of demand needed to be met with imports. Still, prosumer capacity has increased considerably in recent years, reaching a capacity of nearly 3.3 GW by the beginning of 2026.

All nuclear and large hydropower, 98 per cent of coal and 73 per cent of fossil gas units are state-owned via the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business. Decisions to retire or even build new conventional units are therefore primarily in the hands of the Ministry.   

The phase out of coal began effectively in 2021, when 1075 MW of installed capacity at the Mintia hard-coal plant were put into cold reserve, not officially retired, due to accumulated debts over CO2 allowances and fines since 2014. The plant had been breaching its emission limits for SO2 by 10-15 times, and Romania was referred to the Court of Justice of the EU in December 2021 over this case. The case was discontinued on the basis of plant closure. 

In 2022 Romania passed legislation to fulfil the commitment in its National Recovery and Resilience Plan to eliminate coal from the electricity mix by the end of 2032. Despite some flaws and being less ambitious than the initial legislative proposal, Law 334/2022 sets a clear coal exit date, includes power plant closure benchmarks and introduces social protection measures. However, less than a month after its approval, the Government amended the law and postponed the retirement of 600 MW (Turceni 7 and Rovinari 3) from December 2022 to October 2023. It also approved almost doubling the production from three lignite mines. 

Most of the retired coal capacity was supposed to be replaced and even increased by gas capacity, as follows: 

• The 2 units (150 MW each) at Craiova II were expected to close in 2025 and be replaced with a 200 MW gas unit. 

• Ișalnița unit 8 was supposed to be closed in 2025, and unit 7 in 2026. Both units (2 x 330 MW) were to be replaced in 2026 with a 850 MW gas plant. 

• Unit 3 at Turceni (330 MW) should have closed in 2025. It was planned to be replaced in 2026 with a 475 MW gas unit. 

Turceni and Ișalnița have had funding allocated through the Modernisation Fund since July 2023, making them some of the last gas plants in the EU to be financed through public funds.  

However, these are nowhere near to even starting, as no bidders participated in the three tenders that were organised until the end of 2025. 

Because of that, in the second half of 2025, frantic negotiations took place between the Romanian Ministry of Energy and the European Commission, which aimed to postpone some of the coal plant closures. These resulted in new amendments to the Decarbonisation Law, which were adopted in December 2025 and foresee that only 1045 MW of coal capacity will close by the end of 2025, instead of the original 1755 MW. The rest is set to close in August 2026. After this date, three other units (Turceni 5, Rovinari 4 and 5) totalling 930 MW will continue to operate until 2030. 

Despite the announced closures, on the national energy system operator’s website, as of January 2026, 11 coal units are operating, the same as in early 2025, with a net installed capacity of 1835 MW, only 365 MW less than a year ago.

There are two main coal companies managing both power plants and mines: the Oltenia Energy Complex (OEC) manages five units and 10 mines, all lignite-based, and it normally delivers over 90 per cent of the country’s coal-based electricity. The main hard coal processing company, located in the neighbouring county, is the Jiu Valley Energy Complex, formerly known as the Hunedoara Energy Complex (HEC).  

The company was allegedly revamped in October 2023 and received over EUR 14 million state aid for safe mine closures, through a decision by the Ministry of Energy.  In reality, the company was used more as an election vehicle, for the 2024 mega election year, with no fewer than nine directors and 325 new hires. In early 2025 the Minister of Energy announced a new restructuring phase and the need to cut jobs. This came less than a month after the Government had submitted a new tranche of state aid for approval, totalling EUR 800 million.  

Despite the announced modernisations in 2020-2021, only one of Oltenia Energy Complex’s plants is fully compliant with all pollution limits in the so-called BAT Conclusions which entered into force in August 2021. According to an assessment by Bankwatch Romania, only the hard coal unit at Paroseni had emissions within limits on all polluting substances. However, the plant operates only 10-17 days per month.

Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CEO), has been undergoing a restructuring process since 2019, and by April 2021 had received nearly EUR 500 million in “salvation aid” to pay for its 2019 and 2020 CO2 certificates. The company committed to retire its coal fleet, to be replaced mainly with new capacities of gas CCGTs and also solar PVs. 

A total of 735 MW of solar PV was expected to be installed on depleted lignite mines and ash disposal sites by 2024. However, only 550 MW were under construction at the end of 2025, and the rest are still in the tendering phase.

Between 2008 and 2013, the main investments were made in wind farms, which as of January 2026 an installed capacity of 3000 MW. The development of electricity generation from renewable sources received a heavy blow in 2013 though due to a change in the subsidy scheme. This reform triggered a quick response by market actors which slowed the trend for new installations.  

Following the positive development of the wind sector, investors started showing interest in the field of solar energy production, which is also virtually inexhaustible in the medium and long term. As of January 2026, dispatchable PV solar farms have a capacity of 1895 MW, more than twice than a year earlier. 

To meet its 2050 decarbonisation goal, the country should also install some 15 GW of offshore wind capacity, which has the potential to cover nearly 40 per cent of the national electricity needs by then.  

The fact that the energy productivity of Romania’s economy stands at 60 per cent of the European average is an indicator that there is plenty of room for improvement. Buildings account for the largest share of energy use, indicating a need to step up retrofits.

For a more in-depth look at barriers to a sustainable energy transition in Romania and our proposals for how to overcome them, see our 2021 study with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: The Political Economy of Energy Transition in Southeast Europe – Barriers and Obstacles.